


Run and Go With It

by aksarah



Series: On Top Of The Universe [2]
Category: Steam Powered Giraffe
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-08
Updated: 2013-10-29
Packaged: 2017-12-22 18:53:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 21,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/916802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aksarah/pseuds/aksarah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sequel to "Life Is So Wonderful" - IN 2003, Spine Walter is missing in another dimension. It's up to the Jon and Spine and Rabbit's troubled teenage daughter to find him, and perhaps she'll find something just as important and fleeting along the way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The "graphic depictions of violence" tag only applies to one scene in chapter 7 and it's very brief so I've left it off.
> 
> Please read “Life Is So Wonderful” in which Spine becomes a man and Rabbit becomes a woman before you read this if you want it to make much sense. This part was inspired by Mrs. M who was going through a rough patch with her teenage daughter at the time.

Thursday, June 19th, 2003, early morning, a few days until the first day of summer--the day the sun shone the longest and the longest twenty-four hours Rabbit Walter felt she had ever lived through. She sat against the cool, cement-block wall of the fifth basement level on a large sofa cushion, wrapped in a comforter and stared blankly at the sealed stairwell fire door leading down to the sixth level. The Jon and Upgrade sat on either side of the door, in standby mode, silent sentinels should anyone attempt to gain access to this lowest subterranean floor of Walter Manor. Around Rabbit were the remains of a half-eaten cucumber sandwich and some empty juice bottles. Annie Walter slept on three sofa cushions across the hall and her teenaged son Peter Walter VI nodded his head as he tried to stay awake at her side.

“I dunno how you do it, Aunt Rabbit,” he mumbled. “I’m so tired.”

Rabbit shrugged slowly. “Sleep, Six. Me and Jon and Up’ll keep watch. ‘N Wanda’ll be down here again soon once she’s got some rest.”

“And Nikki?” Peter asked, hopefully.

Rabbit turned her head away and fell silent. Peter immediately apologized but Rabbit shook her head. The sound of footsteps from the fourth-floor stairs roused the boy and a wide grin spread across his face as a tall, teenaged girl with chin-length straight black hair descended, followed closely by Wanda Walter.

“Nikki!” Six greeted her. The girl waved a long, slender arm passively.

“Nikki.” Rabbit smiled softly. “Did’ja get some sleep, hun?”

She shrugged, put her back to the wall a good five feet away and slumped down to sit with her knees bent. She wore a loose-fitting, worn grey t-shirt with a black stylized face and the words “black tape for a blue girl” on it and a pair of small, black shorts. Wanda huffed as she passed her and sat cross legged in front of Rabbit. “You,” she glowered. “Sleep or eat, _now_.”

“I’m ok.”

“No, you’re damned well not, Rabbit.”

There were dark circles under Rabbit’s pretty, mismatched eyes and her posture, hunkered down on the floor spoke to her exhaustion. “Don’t worry about me.”

The teen girl made a rather pronounced scoffing sound and rolled her eyes. Wanda Walter slapped the smooth, polished concrete floor with her hand and spun around to face her. “Nikola Walter I have had just about _enough_!”

Rabbit’s eyes went wide and she fumbled to reach out from under her comforter. “Wanda, don’t. She didn’t mean...”

“She did so, Rabbit. I am sick, _sick_ of how your daughter disrespects you! If I so much as rolled my eyes at my mother...” Wanda’s face went crimson with anger.

Nikola set her jaw and glared at Wanda. She shot up from the floor and bolted back up the stairs, her mother begging her to come back, her aunt demanding it. “Nikki, please! Come back! I... I need you...” But her daughter was gone. Peter stared at the stairwell then shot daggers with his eyes at Wanda. His mother slept on through the disturbance having taken a ‘sleep aid’ several hours ago.

Wanda frowned. “I’m sorry, Rabbit, I shoulda thought. I’m just so... It’s not right the way she treats you.”

Rabbit pressed the heels of her palms into her eyes and took a deep breath. “Nope. Not gonna cry again,” she said quietly. “How the hell’m I not outta t-t-tears?”

Her aunt stood and extended her hand to her. “If you’re not going to sleep, you need to eat, and that,” she pointed to the dried-up cucumber sandwich “is not food anymore. Come on, let’s go make some more sandwiches for breakfast.”

Rabbit took a deep breath and nodded, giving in to her tough love and reached out to get a hand up.

 

.x.

                **Wednesday, June 18th... (Yesterday)**

                Spine Walter typed furiously, his fingers flying across the keyboard as Peter A. Walter V rattled off figures and observances and Walter Girl Barbara squinted in concentration as she did her best to assist her employers. In nearly the center of the room, a rift they had been cajoling into stability for hours pulsed dangerously, its thin, bright blueness yawned and grinned. Barbara’s eyes flicked from the rift to a measuring instrument she held out at arm’s length. “Nine point two,” she said firmly. “Sir?”

                “I know!” Peter barked. “Spine?”

                “Almost...” He gnashed his teeth and at last the right formula came to him. He shouted the numbers out and as Peter fumbled to adjust settings on the positron collider strapped to his back an arc of blue matter energy whipped free of the rift much like a prominence from the sun and struck Barbara. She shrieked as it coursed through her body, dropped the meter and fell to the ground, unconscious.

                “Barb!” Spine cried and leapt up from his seat at the computer.

                “Barb!” Peter cursed as he urgently flipped the switch to enable the three-prong neutrino wand in his hands, its hum almost imperceptible in the din of crackling and snapping coming from the angry rift. “Wait, Spine!” he warned. Spine Walter dashed forward in front of Peter toward the fallen form of his friend. Another prominence whipped out and lashed around Spine, retracting and pulling the 6’4” tall man off his feet and toward the gaping maw of the rift and he screamed as the energy pulsed through him. As planned, Peter directed the adjusted wand designed to cross three proton streams and force-close tears in dimensional fabric and in a blind panic, let loose. The room was bathed in orange light as the beams twisted and arched, slamming into the rift. In a second, the rift closed and Peter struggled to power down the weapon. Fire suppression systems went into effect and doused small fires set by the errant beam on the far wall with foam. Barbara moaned and pushed herself off the floor in a daze and Peter crashed to his knees and cursed vehemently.

                Hastily, he pushed his left sleeve up and barked into what looked like a fancy watch on his wrist. “Robots to level five. Restrict access to level six. Hatchworth, get down here, _now_.”

                “Understood,” three voices called back in unison.

                “Radio silence. Protocol Seven in effect until further notice.”

                “Understood.”

                Peter Walter dropped the neutrino wand and looked around his lab and into the confused eyes of his assistant.

                “Wha-” she stammered. “What happened? Where’s Spine?”

 

.x.

**Earlier, Wednesday Afternoon...**

 

                In the music room on the first floor, just off the main hallway and only a few doors down from the grand front door and huge stairwell that lead to the upper floors, three robots and one human played songs together. It was just after three in the afternoon. They finished playing ‘Hatch Fever’ and Rabbit spun around on the piano stool, first one way, making it taller, then the other, making it shorter. “That was great!” she said, laughing. “I never get tired of the part where Up gets disgusted with you and tells you to change the song!”

                The newest Walter automaton at only twenty years of age seemed to blush. “Well, it is disgusting to want to expose your chest ‘cavity’,” Upgrade pointed out, shuddering at the thought.

                “Ooh! Can we play ‘Out in the Rain’ next?” The Jon asked, quickly rapping the tom drum with one stick in a staccato beat. Upgrade strummed a fast, flamenco flourish with her acoustic guitar as if to agree.

                Hatchworth ran his left hand along the neck of his bass. “I think that would be good. I do so like that song.” His mustache curved into a smile.

                Rabbit was about to agree as well when she heard the front door close loudly. Heavy footsteps could be heard approaching the music room as someone tromped down the hall. She jumped off the piano stool and skipped to the large, open archway. “Welcome home, Nikki! No more school! Happy summer!” she cheered. Her sixteen-year-old-daughter marched past her, clutching a messenger bag with tell-tale white earbuds stuffed in her ears. “Wanna come listen? Jon’s just about to play one of your favorite...” Rabbit trailed off as her daughter disappeared down the hall and could be heard pounding up the stairs to her room. “...songs.” Rabbit pouted, but before she turned around to face her automaton brethren she erased the devastated look from her face and smiled. “Oh well, guess not! Sucks to be her!”

                “ _I can’t stand it!”_ Upgrade shouted across the wifi. “ _That Nikola Tambourine is so mean!”_

                _“She’s just a teenage girl, Upgrade. She will grow out of it,”_ Hatchworth replied. _“Or so I have read in the Redbook Magazine.”_

                _“Tea doesn’t like us anymore,”_ The Jon added. _“She thinks we’re weird and “lame”, and not just us robots. She doesn’t like Spine and Rabbit, or Six or anyone. It makes me sad.”_

                _“It makes me mad!”_ Upgrade shouted across the network.

               _“She will grow out of it,”_ Hatchworth insisted. _“She will grow up. We just have to sit back and love her until she does. Look at Rabbit. She tries so hard even though it hurts so much. We need to support her. In no time Nikola will come around.”_

                Their discussion took less than a moment of time to complete across the wireless and Rabbit didn’t notice that it had even happened by the time she turned around and smiled at them.“There is no place I'd rather be!” she sang. “Don't give me nothing in between!”

 

                April 15th, 1987 used to be the longest day Rabbit Walter felt she had ever lived through. She was in labor since the afternoon two days before and remained in hospital for thirty-two hours before she delivered her first and only child.

A few years before, after Spine had proposed to her, the subject of children came up. Spine had been quiet for a long while and she thought perhaps he didn’t want any and was afraid to say so. It was far worse than that. Because his exposure to Blue Matter was so high (his hair was completely blue), he was sterile. Spine had broken down in tears when he admitted this to her and Rabbit had to console him, while at the same time her own heart was breaking--her dream of becoming a mother going up in smoke. But how could she tell him that? The man she had never seen shed a single tear was weeping in her arms! She told him that she didn’t want kids if she couldn’t have his and shushed him until he fell asleep. When he went to work the following day she went up to the northern turret and bawled like a lunatic for hours.

                A few years later, Rabbit was sick off-and-on for a week and after going to talk to Walter Girl Barbara about it, discovered she was pregnant. The house was already ecstatic with the recent birth of Peter Walter VI and this news just made the party all that more festive.

                Spine and Rabbit did not name their daughter. They left that weighty responsibility to their robot brothers and sister. Each was supposed to pick one name. In order of age, they gave their choices. Hatchworth chose Nikola Tesla because he didn’t realize that they meant one singular name instead of one person’s name. The Jon changed his mind from whatever it was he had previously thought of (Biscuit? Karandash? Mxyztplk, perhaps?) once he heard Hatchworth’s choice and chose Tea, because it stood for Tesla, he said. Upgrade denounced the idea of a beverage for a name and argued that the “T” should stand for her favorite instrument, the Tambourine. And so it was that Nikola Tea Tambourine Walter came home to live in Walter Manor with her aunts, uncles, parents and baby cousin.

                Until Nikola was about thirteen she was a happy, inquisitive child. She was quiet but not shy. Tall and olive-skinned, she more closely resembled her father, but had her mother’s eyes, though both of them were green. Her hair was black and she wore it long until she started to change.

After going to a special children’s event held in San Diego at age thirteen, Nikola Walter was exposed to ‘real people’, as she called them. These people thought her family was ‘weird’ and ‘freaky’ and for some reason, when Nikola listened to the girls talk about boys and fashion and they excluded her from their lives for being different, she desperately wanted to be accepted by them. Over the next three years, she systematically shut herself down and pushed her family away, demanded to be sent to public school and kept to herself whenever possible. Her father tried to reason with her but his gentle nature wasn’t enough to force her to change her ways. Her mother kept repeating the mantra ‘it’s just a phase’ over and over, but every month it seemed her daughter got farther and farther away from her.

In only two years, Nikola would be eighteen and could conceivably leave home forever. More and more, Rabbit was convinced that this was inevitable, but she continued to smile and have patience. What would it do to scream at her and make things worse for everyone?

 

                Rabbit turned this argument over in her mind for the millionth time as she took a seat once more at the piano. “Ok, guys,” she said brightly. “Let’s do this!”

The three automatons nodded to her but suddenly stopped moving and stood at attention.

                “Understood,” they said together.

                Rabbit’s stomach flipped. “Guys...?” She too stood up.

                “Understood,” they said again and quickly filed from the room. Hatchworth sprinted ahead of them and was soon out of sight.

                “Guys? Hatchy, Jon, Up--w-w-what’s going on?” she shouted and stumbled after them.

                “Sorry, Rabbit,” Upgrade said, her head turning around to face her as she hurried after her brothers. “Protocol Seven.”

                Rabbit slowed her pace and stopped following them. “Protocol...” She felt suddenly nauseous. “ _Seven_? What happened, damn it?” she shouted angrily and resumed chasing after them, down the stairs to basement level five. 


	2. Chapter 2

                When Rabbit arrived at the fire door, Hatchworth had already been allowed in and The Jon and Upgrade stood in front of it, guarding it. Rabbit launched into a barrage of questions she knew they could not answer and tried to convince them to let her through. “Come on, guys, I used to be a robot, tell me what’s happening!”

                “We don’t know,” Upgrade hissed, brows raised, sympathetically. “Proto-”

                “Protocol Seven, I know, I know,” she spat and waved her hands, manically. “Radio silence, no info, keep everyone away from the danger until further notice. What danger? Where’s Spine? Is he down there? What’s happened!” she tried to push her way past them and The Jon slid in front of her and held her back.

                “I’m sorry, Rabbit,” he said, meekly. “No one can go down there, not even us.”

                “Jon,” she cried. “Please! My husband is down there, Jon, your brother, please, Jon!” She struggled in his arms, but he held her tight and did not budge.

                By this time, Annie Walter, her son Peter A. Walter VI and Wanda Walter had all gathered together in the grim hallway. Annie trembled and hugged her son tightly. He glowered at the two robots guarding the door behind which his father and friends were quarantined. Norman Becile watched the front door of the manor and Nikola sulked in her room, unaware of the drama unfolding in the basement. Rabbit bawled into The Jon’s shoulder and he hugged her tightly, his face strained, lip trembling, trying to keep it together for her sake.

 

.x.

 

**Thursday Morning**

                Rabbit was quiet as she followed Wanda to the elevator down the hall then up to the kitchen. She seated herself at a small island in the center of the large room and unwrapped a bag of wheat bread.

                “I’m sorry, again, Rabbit. I know you just want everything to be smooth sailing, but families aren’t always happy with each other, you know.”

                “I know,” she said quietly. “Remember how Spine and me used ta’ fight?”

                Wanda laughed. “Boy, do I ever! Even _back then_ , you were merciless!”

                Rabbit sat at attention. “I was?”

                “Are you kidding? I know you’ve forgotten some of that old stuff, but you teased the ever-loving daylights out of The Spine.” Wanda paused her rummaging in the fridge. “Makes me wonder if you were in love with him _back then_ , too.”

                “I was not _in love_ with him... _back then_.” Rabbit said, folding her arms tightly. “I _loved_ him but that’s different.”

                Wanda laughed. “Sure, sure. Here, make some ham ones, I’ll make some cucs.” She passed her packages of ham and cheese slices and pushed a jar of mayonnaise and head of lettuce toward her that they could both use them then turned back to get the mustard.

                “I just wish that...” Rabbit started and shook her head, trying to hold it together. “I wish that Nikki would find happiness and if that happiness is somewhere else what am I gonna do to stop her from going?”

                Wanda sighed. “Rabbit, she’s not going anywhere...”

                “She’s going to school and she’ll be eighteen soon and then she can do whatever she wants so maybe then she’ll go find something somewhere that’ll put a smile back on her face and maybe she’ll send me a picture so I can see it again.” Tears fell on the piece of bread she’d been smearing the same bit of mayo onto for a good minute. “Crap,” she hissed and pushed the bread away. The knife skidded across the table and spun in place for a second. “Crap! I want to stop crying now!” Rabbit shouted. “But I can’t! I just can’t! The love of my life may be dead or maybe not but I just want to know and my daughter hates me and there’s nothing I can do or say to change either of those things!”

                In a move that would be considered out-of-character in any other circumstance, Wanda Walter grasped Rabbit’s left arm and pulled her forcibly into a tight hug.

                “What did I do?” Rabbit cried. “What _didn’t_ I do? What can I do?”

                “Wait,” Wanda said. “She’s a Walter. Sometimes, it’s hard to acknowledge that the family only wants what’s best for you, because it’s more than just living in a house full of weirdoes and creepy stuff that other people can’t possibly understand. It’s our birthright and almost our duty and it can weigh heavy on us. I know. I went through it myself. Christ, I’ve been through it _all_ and I’m still here. I still love everyone and I know how much they love me and I wouldn’t trade any of it for anything.”

                Rabbit clutched her aunt tightly and soon her sobbing calmed and she released her to blow her nose loudly into a paper napkin. “You’re right, of course. It’s just so hard.”

                “Well,” Wanda scoffed and released her. “Just because she’s goin’ through some tough stuff, doesn’t mean Nikki’s gotta be mean to you. You’re doing your best and she’s got to know and respect that. And _you_ ,” she said sharply, “you’re exhausted. Promise me after you eat you sleep for a little while. We’ll wake you as soon as anything happens.”

                Rabbit nodded and they went back to working on making sandwiches for everyone.

In the hallway to the Kitchen, Nikola wiped her face with her t-shirt and slowly walked away.

 

.x.

                Not a half an hour after Rabbit finished her sandwich and was being urged again to sleep, her daughter slowly descended the stairs to lower level five once more.

                “Nikki...” Rabbit said softly.

                Much to her mother’s surprise she sat down next to her. “No news?” the teen asked in her deep, womanly-sounding voice.

                Rabbit shook her head. She wanted to reach out and grab her hand and squeeze it. She wanted to pull her head into her lap and stroke her silky black hair, so much like her father’s and tell her it was going to be alright. She wanted to be able to be her mother again, to be needed and loved again by her only child. Just as she had made her mind up to gently try to hold Nikola’s hand, the sound of footsteps coming from the stairwell to level six had everyone scrambling to their feet.

                “Protocol Seven cancelled.” Upgrade and The Jon said as they came back online. The Jon blinked a few times, noticing Rabbit and Nikola holding on to each other and staring past him at the fire door. It opened and Annie Walter let out a wail of relief as she saw her husband, looking worn and tired, emerge from the lower basement. He gave her a soft look that wasn’t quite a smile as she hugged him tightly. His son, however, stood a few feet away, and although it was clear he was relieved to see him alive, he frowned, deeply.

                Hatchworth helped Barbara up the stairs--a sprained left ankle taped up. He greeted his robot siblings who exhaled steamy sighs of relief.

                Quickly, Peter Walter V gently pushed his wife away and stepped toward Rabbit. Annie gasped as she noticed that Spine was not with them. “Rabbit,” he said. “I-I’m sorry.”

                For once, Rabbit did not burst into tears. She did not flail and scream and beat whatever was nearby with her small fists. She squeezed her daughter tighter for a moment then went limp as she fainted dead away.

 

.x.

                **Yesterday**

                Spine Walter cried out as the energy coursed through his veins. He thought how strange it was that something he was supposedly acclimated to should hurt so badly. He noticed his body felt light, weightless almost, and wondered if perhaps he’d died. No, his body was moving and he was moving with it. “Sorry, Pete,” he said. No one heard him.

 

                He awoke curled on his left side in a field. Everything ached as if all his muscles had been strained at once. He sat up slowly and looked around. The field was quite large. The sun was just rising and small inconsequential clouds were dispersing around it. To the east were more fields and rolling hills as far as the eye could see. To the west were taller hills, fairly close by, five, maybe ten miles away. To the north, a small pond, some swamp, and a few trees. To the south, a forest interspersed with patches of bedrock.

                Spine groaned as he stood up, the memory of what had happened coming back to him. “Great. Just where the heck am I, a National Park or something?” he wondered, staring at the mountains. He touched the communicator on his wrist. “Pete? You there? Barb?” Only static and a null-set displaying no signal answered. “Great.” He squinted at the mountains. “Huh, looks just like...”

If he had any color to lose from his pallid face, he would have done as his heart flipped and he spun around to the north and stared at the pond. “No way...” He looked down at his feet then all around, to the sky and the points of the compass. “Oh no.” Spine checked his communicator again, shouting into it, but it was as good as useless. “I didn’t go anywhere. The manor should be right here! There should be planes in the sky and noise from the highway.” He strained in the direction of the nearest major road and heard only bird song and the wind through the distant trees. “Nothing. I got sucked through the rift and this world is _empty_.” Spine sank to his knees in the tall grass and tried to process this fact. “Rabbit,” he whispered. “Nikola. Pete, everyone. I’m so sorry.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Late Thursday Morning**

The whole family gathered in the teal parlor--the best space in which everyone could be comfortable as well as see each other face-to-face. Even Norman with his oddly-misshapen body had a special chair made just to accommodate him in this room and he slouched into it with little effort. His Picasso eye blinked disturbingly and his more normal one expressed worry and sadness. His wife patted him lovingly on the head and sat on his knee.

Upgrade and Hatchworth stood near one of two large archways that lead into the room and watched their human friends with worried looks. Peter Walter VI sat as far from his father as he could in an uncomfortable, tiny chair--his arms folded and legs crossed. His right foot tapped the air incessantly. Walter Girl Barbara sat next to him, half-leaning on a divan. Exhaustion painted her face and made her appear much older than her sixty-some-odd-years.

On a plush and fairly threadbare blue velvet couch across from them The Jon sat on one end with Rabbit’s head in his lap. She had not woken since fainting in the basement and was so exhausted that she slept on, even when he had picked her up and carried her upstairs. The Jon stroked her hair carefully with his brass fingertips and his mouth twitched in thought.

Nikola sat on the floor close to them and hugged her knees to her chest. She stared at the antique Afshar Persian carpet’s odd design. It, like the sofa, was old and worn. Usually, Nikola wouldn’t dream of sitting on the floor in shorts, knowing full well the carpets were rarely cleaned, but nothing like that mattered right now. Her father was gone.

 

Peter Walter V took a seat in an intricately carved Victorian chair with green upholstery. Though Rabbit was asleep, he told everyone what they had been doing and what happened the moment Spine disappeared.

His wife, seated beside him, held his left hand. “So, he’s lost in some other dimension somewhere,” she said softly. “And you don’t actually know if he’s...”

“He could well be alive,” he said, extending his right hand and raising a finger for each point. “We have no way of knowing that, no way of communicating with him, and even after more than twenty-four hours of nonstop work we have no way to reopen the exact rift we so succinctly closed. It was our goal to make certain that rifts like that can never open again once sealed and boy, did we do a good job!” said angrily. “I don’t know what to do. I feel terribly responsible.”

“Mr. Walter.” Barbara said. “You can’t do that to yourself. We couldn’t have known this would happen.”

He only sighed in reply.

The room was silent. Most eyes were on Rabbit as she dozed in The Jon’s lap. The automaton’s lips stopped fidgeting and he slowly raised his right arm.

Annie nudged her husband and pointed to the eager robot. Peter raised a brow. “Jon?”

He lowered his arm. “Sir, I have an idea. I think.”

Peter took a deep breath and smiled slightly. “Ok, Jon. Shoot. I’m open to anything right now.” He knew that what came next would be totally crazy, utterly implausible and full-on nutso but right now, he thought maybe he needed the laugh.

“I can go look for him.”

Nikola lifted her head from her knees and pouted at the robot. Hatchworth and Upgrade looked at each other then at The Jon. Peter’s brows came together. “...How?”

“I’ll go and look,” he said, brightly.

Peter put his fingers to his scalp and massaged it a little. “Jon. That’s very nice, but this is very serious.”

Hatchworth took a small step forward. “Sir, he is serious.”

All eyes were now on the brass automaton. He was careful to move only his arms and not disturb Rabbit. “I am. _Seriously_ serious. I want to get The Spine back, and I think I can.”

“Alright,” Peter sighed. “How, Jon?”

                He took in a deep breath. “I’ll send the other Mes out to look while I ping with Tea’s wavelength that I’ll continually broadcast to all of them. If I get resonance, I’ll know where he is and I can go get him.” The Jon blinked his blue photoreceptors a few times and nodded once as if he had just said all that ever needed saying.

                Wanda Walter laughed in a surprised and pleased sort of way. Peter Walter VI raised a brow but said nothing. Annie watched her husband, carefully. Upgrade beamed, proudly and Hatchworth and Norman nodded. Nikola stared at the robot as if his head was on fire.

                “Jon,” Peter began. “Pretend, for a moment, that I know nothing about dimensional rifts, the space-time continuum or Blue Matter and explain what you just said to me again as if I’m just some rube off the street so I can wrap my brain around it.”

                “Sure, Five!” he agreed. “Right now there are...” he paused and cast his eyes up as if looking to the heavens. “...one hundred and twelve other Mes out there.”

                “Mes? You mean, _yous_?”

                “Mes, yes.”

                Wanda laughed again, garnering her a wilting look from her nephew. “Wanda, do you know what he’s talking about?”

                She smirked. “Maybe. I wanna hear Jon tell it, though. Go ahead, honey.”

                He smiled back at her. “Ok. I can communicate with these other Mes. A soul’s wavelength is kind of like music. It’s something I can feel and measure and tell which soul is which by what song it sings. Children and parents have bits of their songs that match. Tea’s song and her parents’ song harmonize with each other as do Six’s with Annie’s and Five’s. They resonate no matter where they are in the world in a way that no one else does. This only works with humans, though. We’re made of different stuff so it’s not the same for robots. I can hear the song--receive the signal, sort of, boost it and broadcast it around the world in one, two, three...” The Jon suddenly cast his eyes above again as he counted up. He held very still.

                “Jon?” Peter asked. “What’s he doing?”

                “Shhhhhhh!” Wanda hissed at him. “Give him a few seconds.”

                “...Twenty-nine, thirty, thirty-one, thirty-two. Pinged. Thirty-two seconds!” Jon chimed. His smile fell. “No Spine in this world, just Rabbit. But we knew that.”

                Peter’s jaw hung open. “You just _pinged_ the _world_?” Wanda laughed in delight and Nikola’s expression became more worried. “But how are you going to ping the dimension that Spine might be in?”

                “Oh, that part’s easy. I’ll just hop through them one at a time.”

                Peter rolled his eyes. “I’m a rube, remember?”

                “Oh! Sorry. Um. Hm. Never had to explain this before, Five.” The Jon looked up to his robot siblings as if they could possibly help him out. They both shrugged.

Hatchworth offered the only thing he knew about The Jon’s mysterious ability. “There’s this koi and this hot-dog, you see, and...”

                Peter Walter held up his hand. “Know what? Never mind. I don’t want to know. I’ll just accept that you can do this and move on, how’s that?”

                The Jon shrugged. “Suit yourself. Once one of the Mes finds The Spine, he’ll call me to that world to come pick him up and we can go home!” The Jon put his hand on his chin. “I’ll have to set up a database of worlds so we don’t check the same one twice, though. Should be easy enough.”

              Peter Walter V stood up and paced a few times, thinking this over. “Jon, since when have you been so... together?”

                Wanda suddenly stood up as well and folded her arms. “Since always, ding-ding. When the going gets tough, our automatons get going, right, Jon?”

              “Right, Miss Wanda! Ok. I’ll tell the other Mes right now what’s up and see if the signal works. One moment please,” he said in a sing-song voice and his expression and movement froze in place. Everyone tensed and watched him carefully. Nikola scanned the room and met the eyes of Peter Walter VI who gave her a sympathetic look. She quickly looked away and he wilted. “Done. They pinged their worlds. No Spine. But they are all on board and ready to go. Can I send them?”

                “Can you...?” Peter asked in a daze. “Yes! Yes! Go for it!”

                The Jon beamed and nodded. “They’re off!” He looked down and saw that Rabbit was awake, though only just, and she smiled up at him. “Rabbit,” he said softly. “We’re gonna get him back.”

                “Thank you, Jon,” she said quietly, reached up and put her hand on his golden cheek.

                Nikola closed her eyes for a moment then rocked to her feet. “You said there are one hundred and twelve other versions of you in other dimensions?”

                “Yep.”

                Nikola stretched with her back facing her mother and The Jon. “Given it takes about thirty seconds and there would be some lag time between worlds, say, give about a full minute between each ping, and you can run about eighteen hours before needing rest for about six, that’s, what, about one hundred and twenty thousand worlds a day, give or take?” All three automatons answered at once that her math was correct.

Peter Walter VI stared at her as if he was seeing her for the first time. For three years she’d been quiet. She’d gone to the public school while he remained homeschooled, too afraid of people’s scrutiny of his family to brave it, himself. His few encounters with children his own age had not been happy ones. Nikola had since shot up a good foot to tower over him at at least 5’8” tall. She dressed differently, acted differently and rarely smiled or spoke to anyone in the house. He had forgotten that she was smart, and to hear her work through this problem rationally and calmly in a way that it hadn’t dawned on him was fairly shocking. She was very much her missing father’s daughter. The heavy frown on Peter VI’s face melted away in awe of the girl of his dreams.

“So,” she continued.  “If there were one hundred and thirteen of you doing it, you’d clear another thousand per day. Why aren’t you going, too?”

                All eyes were on Nikola as she turned to face The Jon.

                “Because I need to be pretty close to you to broadcast the signal so if I went...”

                “You’ll take me with you,” Nikola asserted.

                Rabbit’s eyes widened and she sat up and stared at her daughter. “No.”

                Nikola ignored her. “Is it possible, Jon?”

                “It is, but...” he said, nervously, watching Rabbit start to shake.

                “No!” Rabbit shouted. “No, not my daughter, too!”  
                “I can _help_ , Mom.”

                “You can help by staying _right here_!”

                “When I was little Jon told us all about the other worlds he’d been to. Some of them are terrible! What if it takes weeks to find Dad and he’s somewhere dangerous or cold or something? He could be somewhere where there’re dinosaurs or murderers or there’s no food or shelter, Mom!” she cried. “I can help, and if I don’t and something happens to him because we didn’t get to him in time I’ll never forgive _anyone_!”

                Rabbit recoiled as if the words hurt her physically. She hugged herself and shook with fear. The Jon’s hand on her shoulder stopped the shaking almost instantly.

                “Rabbit. She’s got a point. I promise I’ll take care of her.”

                “Jon...” Rabbit pouted and looked to be on the verge of tears again. Nikola squatted down in front of her mother who was now sitting up on the couch.

                “Please let me do this, Mom. I’ll bring Dad home.”

                Rabbit leaned forward, clenched her own hands together and pressed these into her lips. She looked from The Jon to Nikola and back again a few times before nodding and whispering her ‘ok’. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief to feel the tension lift. Wanda Walter put her hands on her hips and smiled. “Ok, kids. Let’s get you some sandwiches, granola bars maybe and water and send you off proper!”

                Hatchworth waved jazz-hands. “Hero quest! So cool!” he exclaimed.

 

**Noon**

                About an hour later, Rabbit was done fussing over Nikola and The Jon and everyone assembled in the main hall at the base of the stairs on the first floor to send them off. Nikola had changed into a pair of black jeans, converse sneakers and a black t-shirt with a white circle and a sort of cubist face in profile on it. Over this she had a grey, zippered, hooded sweatshirt and her messenger bag was slung across her chest over her right shoulder. This was stuffed with power bars and a few bottles of water. The Jon had a backpack full of bottled water on his back. He was pleased that the straps were red and didn’t mind that they covered his suspenders. He adjusted the heavy weight easily and gave Wanda the thumbs-up.

                “Be safe,” Rabbit said to both of them and gave them hugs. “Come home soon.”

                Peter Walter VI wanted to rush forward and kiss her and tell her he’d be waiting for her, but he didn’t. It sounded good in his head, but would be more than awkward in real-life, he thought. And if she didn’t return his feelings he’d feel awful until he saw her again. Instead, he nodded his head to her when her eyes looked his way. She dipped her head back and the teen they called ‘Six’ thought his heart would burst.

                “If we don’t find him in one week,” The Jon said. “We’ll come back for a day or two then head out again.”

                Nikola pouted and hugged her mother. “I’ll bring him home,” she repeated. “I love you, Mom.”

                Tears came to Rabbit again, but she smiled proudly. “I love you, too, Nikola. See you soon!”

                The Jon stuck out his hand and Nikola took a deep breath, grasped it tightly and in a twinkling they were gone--a swirl of blue and white confetti drifted to the floor then vanished in their wake.


	4. Chapter 4

**Noon, Thursday, June 19th, 2003**

                For a second, it was dark. Impossibly dark. Then it was impossibly light, just for another second, not even long enough for eyes to adjust--human or automaton. The Jon made a satisfied sort of sound as if to say ‘that went as I had expected’ which was a relief to the girl who shuddered as her body felt as though it had been washed in freezing cold water for the briefest of moments. There was no time to dwell on the strangeness of jumping between dimensions (with a robot who she knew to have a koi fish and a hot dog swirling around somewhere inside his impossible chassis) as they were now very far from home, although it appeared that only the decoration of Walter Manor had changed.

                Where they had been surrounded by their friends and family and photos of same on the walls a moment before, they now stood in a hall, vacant of both. Small tables dotted the expanse of the long, wide main hallway laden with strange objects. Nearby, a marble-top table featured a dead potted plant in an intricately-carved ivory pot, a pair of antique field-glasses, a half-empty porcelain tea cup with pink flower pattern in its saucer and a very small human-looking skull with a very large red gemstone embedded in its mouth. Nikola side-stepped away from this instinctively. “Where are we?” she asked, quietly.

                “Walter Manor,” The Jon answered, counting up. “Three, four. It’ll always be the same place, and time will move normally, but every dimension will be different. Some are pretty strange. Eleven, twelve...”

                A disembodied voice with a British accent called from somewhere near the marble-topped table and made Nikola jump. “Geoffrey? Where have you gotten to? We have guests! Geoffrey! Bloody monkey...” She was sure she saw a face appear in the brown liquid in the half-filled tea cup but blinked a few times and it was gone. She jumped again as the voice called from behind them. “So sorry you weren’t greeted at the door,” a very thin man with a five-o’clock shadow dressed as if going on safari said. He appeared from a hidden door Nikola didn’t remember being there in her manor. “My butler is less than accurate when it comes to his duties. I trust you come in peace?” he asked, eyeing The Jon.

                “Twenty-one, twenty-two... We do. Just looking for someone. Twenty-five, twenty-six...”

                “Perhaps I can help you? I am Professor Elemental and this is my castle.”

                The Jon bowed, still counting. “I’m The Jon and this is Tea.”

                “This is Walter Manor,” Nikola stated with a frown.

                Elemental grinned wide. “Tea? Did you say your name was ‘tea’? Isn’t that marvelous, I think we’ll be good friends, you and I. Shame you seem a bit, young for... well.” He cleared his throat. “No matter, friends are friends are friends after all.”

                “Thirty-one, thirty-two. Pinged. No Spine,” The Jon said flatly. “We can jump again now.”

                “Leaving so soon?” Elemental asked, pouting. “I was just going to have Geoffrey put the kettle on and I’ve just got a shipment of Battenburg from the Old Country.”

                Nikola folded her arms and took another step behind The Jon. “Why are you here? What happened to the Walters?”

                Elemental frowned, clearly not appreciating his hospitality being shirked. “I purchased this manor house from the Cavalcaduim so as to have a residence closer to them. The Walter Estate rather unceremoniously dumped this fine structure on the Cav when the family... how do I put this? _Imploded_ about ten years ago.” Elemental folded his arms and glared at them. “I suggest, if you are not staying for tea, _Tea_ , you might wish to vacate the premises post haste. My ape butler Geoffrey doesn’t take kindly to rude guests.”

                The Jon quickly took Nikola’s hand. “Sorry about that,” he said. “Bye!” And in a flurry of confetti they were gone.

                Professor Elemental blinked a few times and before he could complain about the confetti it had vanished. “Americans,” he said indifferently, shrugged and shouted into the tea cup for Geoffrey to put the kettle on anyway.

 

.x.

                The warm colors and dim glow of incandescent wall sconces disappeared as the robot and the teenager jumped worlds again and were immediately replaced by cold, bright, sterile lighting and a large, white lab room bristling with mid-century-looking equipment. Almost as suddenly as they arrived, an honking alarm sounded somewhere to the right and echoed through the cavernous space. The Jon held Nikola’s hand tightly and she stepped closer to him instinctively as a blue-green automaton on wheels rushed toward them, a red light flashing on its head, it waved rudimentary arms in an assertive manner.

                The Jon raised his left hand in a gesture of friendship. “It’s alright, robot friend, we come in peace,” he said with a smile. “My name is The Jon. I’m sorry we’re intruding in your compound. We’ll only be less than a minute.”

                The robot lowered its arms and made a strange electronic squawking sort of sound.

                “Oh, no. Don’t worry about that, H.E.L.P.eR. We didn’t breach your defenses. We came from another dimension straight to this spot. You caught us really quickly!” he praised the robot. It squawked again and turned off its alert light. “We’re looking for Tea’s father. He’s gone missing.”

                H.E.L.P.eR’s vocalization became louder and it spun around in a tight circle.

               “No, that’s ok. I’m just about done searching. Twenty-nine, thirty, thirty-one, thirty-two. Ah. No Spine, again. Sorry, Tea.”

                The girl shook her head dismissively, not taking her eyes off the excitable robot.

                “Well, it was nice meeting you,” The Jon chimed and tipped his hat. H.E.L.P.eR must have replied something similar for it put one of its end effectors to his head and nodded as they jumped once more.

 

.x.

                Nikola squinted as the sun shone in her eyes and she held a hand up to block it. The air was hot and dry. Brown grass and cracked earth stretched for miles around them all the way to the familiar mountain range to the west of where Walter Manor usually stood. “What the...?” she marveled.

                “Nothing in this world at all,” The Jon remarked and turned in place. “Not even the road. Weird, huh?”

                Nikola raised a brow at him, pulled her hand from his and folded her arms. “Oh, right, because the dude with the talking cup of tea and the sixties-robot in the hangar weren’t out of place at all.”

                Her companion laughed. “You have a point. Every world is different, after all. Think how weird we’d seem to other worlds!”  
                “I do,” she said quietly. “Every damn day.”

                The Jon frowned. “I’m sorry. Twenty-one, twenty-two. Just trying to make light.”

                “Well don’t, ok? This sucks enough as it is.”

                The Jon tensed for a moment but let a plume of steam escape and smiled. “Ok, Tea. “Thirty-one, thirty-two. No Spine. Let’s go,” he said soberly and offered his hand again.

                The girl folded her arms tighter. “Do I have to hold your hand _every time_?”

                The Jon made a face. “Well, no, not really. You could just hang on to something like, my sleeve or my backpack if it made you more comfortable,” he suggested.

                “Yeah,” she said, looking off to the horizon. “It would.”

                He smiled and hefted the pack, inviting her to grab on, which she did reluctantly, and he initiated yet another jump away from the dead world.

 

.x.

                **Five PM, Thursday**

                About four hours and about two-hundred and fifty more worlds later they saw their second version of Walter Manor. There was no time to take in the neatness of the pictures, the newness of the rug and the brightness of the lighting. No time to admire the fresh-cut flowers in the vase at the base of the large main staircase further down the hall. No time to avoid the rambunctious automaton who barreled into The Jon, knocking him over, the backpack and his top hat flying off as the two rolled, crashing into a heap several feet away. Nikola shouted and pressed herself against the wall.

                “Tea! You ok?” The Jon shouted with his face pressed to the floor.

                “Woops!” the automaton cried and untangled itself from The Jon. “Didn’t see you there! I...”

                The Jon looked up as someone took his hand and pulled him to his feet. He stared back at the gold, female-looking robot before him. She wore a pair of puffy, lace-trimmed brown shorts with red suspenders and a cute, cap-sleeved black blouse.

                “Bea! You ok?!” another voice called from further down the hall.

                “Yeah, Muffin, I’m... I’m fine, I think maybe I hit my head too hard, though. I crashed into a boy-me.”

                “A what?” the robot called Muffin asked as she loped toward them. She wore a knee-length black skirt with a red crinoline similar to what Upgrade liked to wear and a tight bodice that looked like something from the Victorian era. Her copper faceplates were intricate and oxidized to a green patina. “A boy... you!” she cried. “Holy smoke, Bea, you’re right!”

                The Jon laughed lightly and stared at the gold robot girl. He rattled off the spiel he'd repeated hundreds of times. “Hello! I’m The Jon. This is Tea, we’re looking for her dad. We won’t be long. Sorry for the...”

                “The Jon!” Muffin cried. “Do you know Rabbit? Do you know who we are? Muffin, The Bea and The Curve?”

                “Uh, no.” The Jon fidgeted. “Well, you see, I’m from another dimension so The Jon you know is probably another version of me. Thirty-one, thirty-two. No Spine.” He looked quickly to Nikola, still pressed up against the wall, watching the girl robots carefully. Her eyes seemed to burn holes in the one called Muffin. “Ah!” The Jon cried, an idea coming to him. “Tell you what, let me see if I can find him for you!” His head drooped a little and he seemed to be frozen for a moment.

                “Jon?” Nikola asked, panicked. He snapped back and startled her enough that she let out a short shout.

                “I found your Jon! We’re going now, and just as we leave he’ll come here and you can chat. Sound good?”

                The two girls looked at each other.

                “Oh, won’t it be wonderful!” Muffin cried. “We m-m-miss Rabbit so much!”

                “I’m sure you do well can’t stay and chat got a lot of work to do enjoy your visit!” he said quickly, reached out and grabbed Nikola’s hand and jumped away.

 

.x.

                The next world was another empty one--this time, a desert of sand and cacti, stiflingly hot and arid. “Are there really more versions of mom?” Nikola asked quietly, pulling her hand away from his again.

                “Oh, I’m sure there are. Seven, eight, nine...”

                “That one robot, Muffin. She reminded me of mom for some reason.”

                The Jon laughed. “That’s weird! Seventeen, eighteen, nineteen...”

                “Yeah,” she agreed and watched a tumbleweed flip along in the distance. She gripped a strap on his pack and prepared to jump again. For a moment she was surprised to realize she expected him to count up to thirty-two and announce that her father wasn’t there. The glimmer of hope, that flip-flop of the heart she felt initially, was now gone. How long had it been? She’d turned her phone off almost as soon as they jumped because she didn’t want to kill the battery and she never wore a watch. She had no appetite and although her feet hurt, Nikola wanted to press on. The more ground they covered, the sooner it would be over. Or so she thought.

                “Thirty-one, thirty-two...”

                “I know,” she spat, cutting him off. “No Spine.”

                The Jon pouted. “Yeah.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The start of the 'worlds!' Oh I had such fun writing these...
> 
> First, Prof. Elemental's State-side mansion. Poor Walter family of that world... wonder what happened when they "imploded..."
> 
> Next, if you don't recognize H.E.L.P.eR. try googling. ^_^ Hehehehe.
> 
> Then you get the lady-bots of my fic "Hello, Good-bye" Muffin and The Bea (The Curve was elsewhere, I guess) who come very close to saying something The Jon would rather not be said in front of Nikola... Hm...
> 
> Next chapter... a misunderstanding makes the tension ratchet up another degree or twelve.


	5. Chapter 5

**Nine PM, Thursday, June 19th 2003**

                They stopped a few times for Nikola to snack on power bars or relieve herself and for The Jon to take in water from the bottles in his backpack but otherwise they hadn’t properly rested in about twelve hours of searching. Among all The Jons currently on the move, they’d cleared over eighty-thousand worlds with no trace of Nikola’s father, Spine Walter. It was early yet, The Jon reassured her when the teen asked for the current numbers. Only a half a day. Chin up. His optimistic smiles were met with a perturbed pout or worse, a turn of the head. He blew steam off, shrugged and jumped again and again and again.

                After about eighteen hours of searching, they arrived at Walter Manor number three at three in the morning on Friday. This one was eerily similar to home, but certain things were off. The smell was slightly different, dustier, if that were possible. The photos and oil paintings on the walls around them indicated a similar Walter Family inhabited this manor but with not-quite-the-same placement and subjects. Footsteps sounded as someone slowly walked down the hall on the second floor, approaching the grand stairs just in front of them. By the sound of them, they were not the heavy footfalls of an automaton. The Jon clenched his jaw and stepped between one photo on the wall to his left and Nikola as he began counting up. In this image behind him, Rabbit, Hatchworth and a human with light brown curls stood in a brotherly embrace, mugging for the camera. “Nine, ten, eleven...” he whispered. “Don’t wander off, Tea,” he said as the footsteps touched the carpeted stairs and someone with long legs came down them.

                Nikola Walter took a step forward and gaped as Walterman Spine came into full view. His hair was blue, his skin was white and he had been buttoning his white lab coat as he went, muttering “well if I can’t sleep might as well work on that...” He stopped walking and talking to himself quite suddenly as he caught sight of the two in the hallway below.

                “Tea, wait!” The Jon shouted, “Eighteen, nineteen...”

                Tears streamed down her face as she bounded up the six or seven steps to meet him and threw her arms around him. “Daddy!!” she cried and bawled into his chest.

                Spine straightened and held his arms out. He cast a surprised, questioning glance at The Jon then back to the teen hugging him so tightly. “I’m sorry, Miss. I think you’ve mistaken me for someone else,” he said gently, put his hands on her shoulders and tried to pry her off of him. “I don’t have a daughter.” The confusion melted into a soft, sad expression on his face.

                “...Thirty-one, thirty-two. It’s not him, Tea,” The Jon said softly.

                Nikola gasped and released him. For a beat she stared up into his green eyes, shook her head quickly then ran past him, up the stairs and down the second floor hallway. In a moment, a door slammed and the house was still again.

                Spine turned back to the automaton staring up at him. “Jon?” he asked, arching his brows.

                The Jon sighed steam and dropped his backpack onto the floor. “We’re from another dimension. Her father, you, are missing and we’re looking for him. I mean you. But not you. I believe she’s run to what is her room in our manor. Fourth door on the left.”

                The Walterman stepped down the stairs slowly and marveled at him. “An unused guest room,” he agreed. “She’s my daughter?”

                The Jon raised a mechanical brow. “You don’t have one here?”

                Spine shook his head. “Nor do we have an automaton Jon. You and I were transformed into humans back in seventy-nine.” He pointed to the photo of Rabbit, Hatchworth and a young man that The Jon had been hiding from Nikola. His human self beamed a huge grin back at him and The Jon cocked his head to one side as he took it in. "The three of you are in Washington playing a gig this weekend."

                The Jon nodded. “In our world it was you and Rabbit,” he said quietly as the two men came face to face. “Spine, it’s important that you don’t tell her that. Her parents haven’t let her know yet and she’s going through such a hard time as it is.”

                Spine Walter agreed and raised a brow. “Sure, sure. Jon, you’re awfully coherent, are you...?”

                Quickly, The Jon held his index finger to his own lips. “Don’t tell her that, either.”

                Spine frowned. “Goodness gracious, Jon...!”

                “It’s ok. It’s by choice.” He smiled briefly. “And now that she’s too far from me, I can’t boost the signal so the search for her father is effectively halted. That will upset her, too.” He made a face and ran his hands up and down his suspenders in worry.

                “I’ll go talk to her,” Spine offered, hopefully. “That is, if that’s alright?”

                The Jon brightened. “I think that would be good. Just, er, ixnay on the obotsray.”

 

.x.

                The guest room was similar to her own bedroom in layout only. The wallpaper was old, probably from the 1930’s and a large brass bed that had gone to meet its maker when she was about ten or so still stood against the southern wall. Two windows looked out onto the mountains to the west. Nikola Walter sat against the northern wall with her long legs bent and head resting on her knees. She stiffened when she heard the knock at the door.

                “Go away, Jon,” she called.

                “It’s Spine, uh...” his voice came muffled through the door and Nikola’s head shot up. “I know I’m not your real dad, but I wondered if I could talk to you for bit?”

                She frowned. What was more embarrassing? Having displayed such a show of emotion to someone who didn’t know her from Adam, or being asked to speak to said person. It hardly mattered, now, she thought. Just one more layer of weird and embarrassing things to add to her already perplexing life. “I guess,” she said and a chill ran over her skin as her father’s doppelganger poked his head into the room. He met her eyes, making sure it was indeed alright to enter and gave a small smile before letting himself in. To her surprise, Spine put his back against the wall next to her and slid down to sit at her side.

                “What’s your name, again? I think The Jon called you ‘Tee?’”

She huffed. “He calls me that. I’m Nikola.”

“Nikola.” He repeated and turned his head to look on her with a kindly smile, his brows raised in wonder. “I have to admit your existence is really incredible to me,” he said. “It would appear that you resemble me, as well.”

                “Yeah,” she said, turning her gaze back to the round edge of the red wool carpet in front of her. “I do. Where’s mom?” Nikola asked with a lilt of sass in her voice.

                “Mom would be...?”

                “Rabbit.”

                Spine succeeded in keeping his shock to himself, having been warned by The Jon to be tight-lipped about her father's former state, but not informed that his robot older brother was not only female, but his wife. “Away for the weekend with the others,” he said simply. “Rabbit. Huh,” he commented, nonchalantly. “The Jon told me you’re searching for your father. What happened?”

                Nikola sighed heavily and stretched her arms out to touch her toes. “Pete, Barbara and he were wrangling a rift. Pete came up with this half-cocked idea that he could seal rifts with a positron collider and I guess by the sound of it, the rift didn’t like it. Dad got sucked in just as Pete sealed it. Permanently.”

                “Oh dear.”

                “Yeah. So we know the rift led to an alternate earth, but no idea which one. Jon won’t tell me how many worlds there are, I think it’s because he doesn’t know but he figures the number is insanely high. I don’t know when we’ll ever find him...” Her voice grew soft and tears came to the corners of her eyes but she fought them back.

               “You’ll find him,” Spine reassured her. “You’re a Walter, aren’t you? By the sound of it, you’re a pretty rational girl, which isn’t surprising considering you're my daughter, but there’s a certain aspect of the unknown, of, dare I say ‘magic’ that influences the lives of the Walters. Luck and serendipity has often played us a winning hand when science has failed us. I have nothing but confidence in your ability and am sure that with luck, you’ll find him sooner than later.”

                Nikola looked back up at the Walterman smiling down on her with her father’s kind face and gave in to her tears.

                “Nikola, I didn’t hug you back earlier because you surprised me, but I feel compelled at the moment to return it.”

                She fell against him and allowed Spine to hug her tightly as she sobbed quietly into his lab coat. When she’d calmed down, he released her and helped her to stand.

                “I’m curious to know, how many worlds have you visited so far?” he asked.

She wiped her face with her t-shirt. “Well, it’s not just us looking.  There are one hundred and thirteen Jons out there and... Oh crap,” she said, her eyes darting from him to the door and back again. “If I’m not in proximity none of them can search!”

“I see. But I think you needed to have this rest, regardless. You need to remember to take care of yourself.”

“I don’t care about myself!” she shouted. “I just want to find you and go home!”

Spine pursed his lips and nodded. He couldn’t argue with that sentiment. If he had a daughter and she were missing he’d run himself ragged searching for her as well and no one could tell him to do it differently. “Then let’s find Jon and get you going again,” he said and opened the guest room door. Sitting with his legs splayed out just a few feet away, The Jon sat in the hall against the wall, his head bowed and photoreceptors dimmed indicating he was in standby and hadn’t been eavesdropping on them but close enough to Nikola to broadcast to the other Jons. Spine tapped him on the shoulder, waking him.

“Time to go, Jon. It was nice seeing you.”

The Jon smiled and took his hand as the Walterman pulled him to his feet. “Same here. Looking forward to seeing _you_ again soon!” He turned to Nikola and noted her red-rimmed eyes. She looked away and he puffed a steamy sigh. “Let’s go, Tea.”

Spine put his hand on her shoulder. “Take care of yourself,” he said. “I’ll be rooting for you.”

She swallowed hard, nodded, stepped away from him and waved as she took hold of The Jon’s pack and they disappeared in a flutter of blue-and-white confetti.


	6. Chapter 6

**10 AM, Friday, June 20th, 2003**

Six hours and over three hundred more worlds later, The Jon started to notice that Nikola looked much worse for the wear. He had rested in the previous Walter Manor while Nikola talked to that world’s Spine Walter for a short while and didn’t feel the stress on his systems that was creeping up as badly as he could have had he gone without. When he asked her if she was alright, did she need to get some sleep, she would shake her head and demand to jump again. If she’d been wounded or in some kind of danger, only then would he be able to override the orders of a human member of the Walter family. Until then, his programming was obliged to go along with what she said, no matter what he felt about it.

 

They appeared in the hallway of Walter Manor for the fourth time and The Jon quickly pulled Nikola with him around a corner into a parlor as he heard footsteps approaching. Nikola tripped over her own feet and stumbled into a clean, well-appointed drawing room, falling against The Jon and muttering an apology.

“Tea?” he asked, alarmed to notice her disorientation. “Hang in there...”

“Who’s there?” a stern, female voice asked. “Pi?”

The Jon winced as he counted up in his head and woman in a teal boucle suit came around the corner. Her jaw fell open as she took in the gold robot and teenage girl trying to hide in her parlor. “Jon?” the young woman asked. Her light blue hair was pinned up on her head and a pair of small, rimless glasses were perched on her nose. “Jon? Is it really you?” Her stern look melted into a relieved, inquisitive smile.

The automaton laughed sheepishly. “Uh, no. Probably not. Fifteen, Sixteen...” Nikola slumped against him and he gave an alarmed shout. “Tea! Hey, Tea, come on! Twenty-three, Twenty-four...” He put an arm under hers and propped her up.

“He here?” Nikola asked softly.

“Thirty-one, Thirty-two. Pinged. No.”

“Let’s go.” Nikola whispered, defeated.

“Um, I don’t think that’s such a hot idea, Tea.”

The woman took a step towards him “Jon, what’s going on?”

“Uh...” The Jon looked from his charge to the woman and around the room, trying to evaluate the safety of this world. This woman knew him, or a version of him. Something was off, though. The way she said his name and arched her brows held a sadness that disturbed him. Before he could answer, Nikola lost consciousness and became dead weight in his arms. “Tea! Tea, hang in there!”

The woman frowned and touched a hand to a sizable gold earring in her left ear. “Pi, I need medical assistance, STAT.” From somewhere in the manor The Jon could hear a thudding sound which shortly resolved itself into the pounding footsteps of a pair of automatons as they bounded toward them.

Jon was surprised by their smooth movements that contrasted deeply with their coloration and distinctly robotic faces, so unlike his own construction. “Are you alright, Miss Deelia?” the small, bluish colored robot asked. It wore jeans, a long-sleeved t-shirt that read ‘Property of San Diego Zoo’ and a pair of Converse shoes. Its counterpart, a tall grey-metal robot with a ghostly, blank faceplate carried a bag with a red cross on it. This one wore grey coveralls with a logo made up of an interlocked M, W and A on the right breast.

“It’s not for me, Pi. Please see to this girl, she’s fainted.”

“Yes Miss Deelia,” Pi chimed. The Jon was hesitant but could detect no malice from either robot.

“It’s alright, Jon. They’ll take good care of her. Medicine is their job.”

“Leave it to us, friend.” Ether, the grey robot said in a hollow, echoing sort of voice.

“What’s her name, please?” Pi, the bluish robot asked.

The Jon watched them as they carefully picked Nikola up and laid her down on a nearby sofa. “Nikola Tea Tambourine Walter. Tea for short.”

“Walter?” Deelia asked. She crossed to a wingback chair and motioned for The Jon to take a seat across from her. He hesitated but did as he could still see what the robots were doing to Nikola from that vantage point. Ether took her temperature with a device that rested in the ear. Pi took her pulse, blood pressure and a blood sample, handing this last item to its partner who opened a compartment in its chest, revealing a sort of mini-lab.

“Jon,” Deelia asked again. “She’s a Walter? What’s going on? Why are you... how are you...?”

The Jon made a face. “I’m not your Jon, Miss Deelia. Tea and I are from another dimension and we’re searching for her father. He’s not here, though. I just pinged this world and came up empty.”

“Pinged? You’re bouncing some sort of signal?”

“Her spirit wavelength. It resonates with his if he’s present. If not, we jump again.”

“Miss Deelia?” Pi asked, drawing their attention. “She’s dehydrated, her sugar is low and she’s suffering from exhaustion. Other than that, vitals are normal. We recommend a saline drip and rest, followed by nutrition.”

Deelia let her features relax a little. “Excellent, thanks. Oh, Pi, please bring us some water when you’re done?” The robot nodded. “Jon, you’ll be our guests until she’s recovered.”

The Jon sighed. “She kept pushing me; didn’t want to stop. She’s anxious to find her dad,” he said. “I thank you for your hospitality.”

She gave him a small, wistful smile. “Welcome to Moreau-Walter Amalgamated, The Jon. My name is Deelia Moreau-Walter, vice-president of operations.”

“Moreau... like Miss Delilah?”

Deelia’s mouth winced in a momentary pout but she nodded. “She was my great-great-grandmother.”

The Jon’s attention turned back to Nikola as the robots set up a saline drip right there in the parlor. Nikola winced as the needle went into the skin of her left hand and she blearily came to. “Tea!” The Jon cried and ran to her side. Deelia wove her fingers together and rested her chin on her thumbs as she watched them from her seat across the room. “Tea, it’s ok, you just fainted. These guys will patch you up. Don’t worry.”

“We gotta get going and find dad,” she said softly.

“No,” he said firmly. At last, she was in sufficient danger that he was able to contradict her. “We’ve got to wait here until you’re better. Why didn’t you didn’t say anything to me about how you were feeling?” The gold automaton pouted. “Don’t scare me like that again, please? I was worried about you. I mean, imagine what Rabbit and Spine would do to me if something happened to you!” he laughed nervously.

Deelia Moreau-Walter stood up suddenly. “Rabbit and Spine? They’re alive, too?”

“Alive?” The Jon asked and took in the pained look on the young woman’s face. “Oh. That’s why I’m not here. Something happened to us.”

Her one-word answer said it all. “Becile.”

Nikola turned her head outwards and her brows came together as she took the young woman in. “Becile...?” she repeated.

The Jon put his hand on her shoulder and gave it a light squeeze. “Ah. I see,” he said. “I’m sorry to hear that.” He sat down with his back to the sofa that Nikola lay upon, close enough that she could touch him if she wanted to and faced Deelia.

The woman took another seat closer to him and sighed. “You’re not like my Jon,” Deelia said. “You’re far too composed and articulate.”

The Jon laughed lightly and a little nervously. “I’m not usually, I just kind of have to be. So...!” he said, looking to the medical robots who had packed up their supplies and bowed to their mistress before quietly leaving the room. “You have different automatons now, huh? We made a little sister for me and Hatchy called Upgrade. Do you have one of her, too?”

Deelia gasped. “Hatchworth is active? How did you repair his power core without unleashing a firestorm of spontaneous rift activity?”

“Oh, The Spine did that. He’s super smart. I don’t know how he did it, though.”

Deelia deflated a little.

“But hey, I have an idea! Give me a lock of your hair.”

“Excuse me?” Deelia blushed and sat up straight in her chair.

“If I have a piece of you I can come back to this world once we’re done and bring you Spine’s notes. I don’t think Rabbit will let me take Spine himself...”

Nikola suddenly turned back to face them again and with tears in her eyes she shouted “neither will I!” She struggled to sit up. “Come on, Jon. Let’s go!”

The Jon spun around into a standing position in one, fluid movement and pushed her by her shoulders back down on the sofa. “Absolutely not!” he shouted back. “Nikola Tea, your mother told me to take care of you and that’s what I’m going to do! You’re going to get some rest and something to eat and not until these guys say so am I going to jump with you again!”

The teenager and the robot stared each other down, both with minds completely set--one selfish the other, selfless. The Jon’s brows arched pathetically as he struggled with being the responsible one--the one now yelling at the girl to whom he used to give wild piggy-back rides through the halls of Walter Manor. “Please, Tea. Rest.” he begged her.

Tears poured down either side of her face. Nikola tried her best to hold them back. “I guess I am a little like my mom, huh?”

The Jon smiled sympathetically. “You mean stubborn as hell and incredibly emotional? Yeah, maybe a little. It’s part of you.” He squatted back down and pulled a handkerchief out of a pocket of his backpack. “But you’re also like your dad so you always feel like you’ve got to keep it all on an even keel. Nothing wrong with that, just don’t let yourself get so worked up about stuff. Sometimes it’s ok to let it out.”

Nikola blew her nose and nodded. “I think I need to sleep.”

The Jon nodded, patted her shoulder, stood up and let Deelia lead him from the parlor so the girl could sleep in peace.

Once he knew they were out of hearing range, The Jon exhaled a huge plume of steam and slumped his shoulders. “That was close,” he said quietly.

Deelia raised a brow as she showed him into her office, one of the larger of the libraries on the first floor. “What was close?”

He closed the door behind him and leaned against it. “Well, you see...”

 

.x.

Twenty-four hours had passed since The Jon and Nikola left home on their quest. Back in their home-dimension, Rabbit Walter awoke in her old bedroom. She refused to sleep in the room she had shared with her husband for over twenty years because even the particular smell of the place brought tears to her eyes. She had slept for a good, solid, six hours but woke confused to be in the old room. Rabbit sat up and blinked in the dim light coming from a crack in the curtains covering the tall windows across the room. A familiar, comforting sound drew her attention to the left where two robots sat on a worn, red velvet Victorian settee, powered down and dozing, the sound of their quieted boilers humming clearly in the stillness.

It seemed that one of them had some sort of sensor to detect her movements because they both started back up at the same time. Upgrade blinked her eyes and grinned at her. “You slept?” she asked. Rabbit nodded sleepily. “Oh good!”

“So glad,” Hatchworth agreed. “You were looking a bit like an old shoe.”

“Thanks, Hatchy,” she groaned and flopped back down. “Maybe I’ll go back to sleep until Nikola comes home.”

“No breakfast?” Upgrade frowned. “It’s the most important meal of the day.”

She sighed melodramatically and looked at the clock on the nightstand. “It’s past noon, already, Up. Ya know, I wish I was still a robot in times like this? I wouldn’t have ta eat or sleep and I could just stew in the corner for days until my boiler ran down and then Spine would have ta... Oh. Guess that wouldn’t work, huh?”

Hatchworth made a face and his mustache twitched. “Rabbit, do you _really_ wish you were still a robot?”

She rolled over and faced them, curling up in the covers as she did so. “Nah, I mean, I loved my life back then and I love my life now, it’s just really hard at the moment.” The robots nodded appreciatively at her. “When I became human, the first thing I thought was ‘oh, I can die now’ and I thought of Pappy and all those who had died and I thought I’m gonna join them in the cemetery one day. It was really hard to think about! So I just kinda figured I should run and go with it and focus on all the good things instead--and there are _so many_ good things, so it was easy. But, right now, when I think that maybe Spine didn’t make it--that he died when this happened and I’ll never know that or see him again...” She curled tighter as tears came.

Rabbit felt the bed move as Upgrade sat down above her head and put a thin hand on her shoulder. “I am worried about them, too. But I am sure that they will be coming home--all three of them. Isn’t that right, Hatchworth?”

He nodded several times. “Can’t keep those Walters down, no sir.”

She sniffed and stretched back out, looking up at the pretty little robot who was looking on her with such affection. Sitting up, she put her arms around Upgrade and they hugged. “You guys are the best. Thanks for staying with me.”

“No trouble at all,” Upgrade said. “Hm. I can’t imagine you being a robot. You’re so soft!” she chimed and gave her a light squeeze.

Rabbit laughed. “Ya wouldn’t’a recognized me, right Hatchy?”

“Not at all. Very tall, rusty.”

“ _Rusty_!” Rabbit cried, indignantly. “I’ll have you know I was _patina’d_!”

Upgrade chuckled. “I haven’t seen a picture of you when you were a robot in such a very long time, I can’t recall a patina.”

“Well, we hid all tha pictures because...” Rabbit released her robot friend and sat bolt upright. “We... oh. Oh _no_.” She leapt out of bed, wearing only one of Spine’s long, button-down shirts and hurried to the door then turned on her heel and returned to the bed then back again before spinning around to face her friends and putting her hands in her hair. “She’s gonna find out. Oh, she’s totally gonna find out, if what Jon said’s true, if there’s a hundred an’ thirteen a him then how many a _me_ are there, ya suppose?”

Hatchworth shrugged. “At least that many?”

Rabbit groaned and fell onto the bed, her legs sticking out comically. No one laughed. “If I thought she hated us before...”

Upgrade folded her arms and opened her mouth to say something derogatory about Nikola but Hatchworth quickly silenced her over the wifi. _“It won’t help. Don’t say it.”_

_“You don’t know what I was going to say.”_

_“I can imagine. Rabbit needs our support right now and throwing her daughter under the bus (ever how obnoxious she’s been) is not going to help.”_

_“I was going to say that it’s about time she knew, anyway. She should be proud to have parents who love each other and their daughter as much as Spine and Rabbit do.”_

_“Ok, admittedly, that is not what I thought you were going to say...”  
                “Ha!”_

_“But! For now we should be nothing but supportive. Agreed?”_

_“Hmph.”_ Upgrade turned her head away from Hatchworth as she dismissed him over the wireless network. “Nikola Tambourine does not hate you. She is just growing.” She shot a weird look at Hatchworth as if to say ‘there, _happy_?’.

“Upgrade is right, Rabbit,” Hatchworth said, awkwardly getting up out of the dilapidated settee. It creaked and cracked under his weight as he leaned on its arm. “I am sure she does not harbor ill will toward you. When she finds out the truth, if she stumbles upon a robot-you or if she returns oblivious and you tell her yourself, she will have to learn to accept that truth, but I’m sure she will. Perhaps she’ll even find a new respect for you!”

Rabbit looked up at him from her prone position and chuckled. She extended her hands and he pulled her up into a standing position. “ _Right_!” she said sarcastically. “Because none a those pictures we stashed away contain me doing anything remotely embarrassing!”

“But Rabbit, what about that one time when...”

She smacked Hatchworth’s arm and made a face. “I mean _all_ of the pics, Hatchy.”

“Oh, that makes sense.”

Upgrade rolled her eyes as she stood and crossed to the door. “You are hopeless. Shall we get breakfast? My sensors indicate Wanda is bumping around in the kitchen.”

Rabbit nodded, smiled, tugged on a pair of Spine’s pajama pants and followed them downstairs.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Want to find out exactly what happened to Deelia's world's Spine, Jon and Rabbit...? Read "Moreau-Walter Amalgamated"! I hope you enjoy it!


	7. Chapter 7

                The Jon took a long draft from a clear glass of water and puffed steam from his vents. He and Deelia Moreau-Walter had exchanged stories and tales-of-woe all morning and the robot clearly became exhausted. He reminded her that she needed to give him a lock of hair so that he could return with Spine Walter’s notes on how Hatchworth was repaired and brought back to life. Fishing in her huge desk, Deelia found a pair of shears, an envelope and two rubber bands. She unpinned her long, blue hair, braided a lock a few inches behind her ear, tied it on either end with the rubber bands and snipped it off. Sealing this in the envelope, she handed it to The Jon. “There. Will that work?”

                “Oh yes. It will echo your wavelength enough for me to lock on to this world for a few years.”

                “Astounding,” she said and stood. “That mysterious nature of yours always boggled our minds. We miss you, Rabbit and Spine very much.” Deelia smiled wistfully then put her hair back up. The Jon nodded slowly. He seemed to be sinking into the leather chair he sat in. “Now, you need rest as well, little man.”

                The robot perked up a little and hefted himself out of the chair. “Little man? That’s what Pappy used to call me!”

                “I guess that was handed down from great-great-grandfather to me,” she said. “I just wish I had been old enough, smart enough, when my sister… when you were... that I could have...” The Jon gave her a huge hug and held her as the stoic, business-like woman at last broke down and cried on his shoulder. Once she’d composed herself, she showed him back to the parlor where Nikola dozed on the sofa so that he could get some rest, himself.

 

                Nikola slept for eight hours with The Jon powered down by her side and woke to a sumptuous dinner prepared by the Moreau-Walter staff. Deelia wished them luck and fully recharged, they set off once more.

 

.x.

                **Nine PM, Friday, June 20th, 2003**

Not a day and a half after leaving home and only a few hours after leaving Deelia Moreau-Walter’s hospitality, they found themselves in the fifth version of Walter Manor which was dark and shadowy in a way utterly unlike the previous four. Dim light was cast from a few wall sconces, many which were burnt out and standing only inches from The Jon was an automaton that looked a little like Rabbit in appearance but his teeth were sharpened to points. The Jon pushed Nikola behind him and stretched out his arms defensively. “One, two, three...” he counted up quietly.

The shock of seeing the two travelers appear before him lasted only a second and the Rabbit-like robot laughed. “Get a load of this, Skull! One a’ them Wally bots is back from the friggin’ dead!”

Another automaton in all black was walking toward them from further down the hall--his face the shape of a ghastly skull. “Hare, you been in the good stuff again?” he chastised.

“Six, seven, eight...” The Jon whispered.

“Jon...” Nikola clutched his backpack and stared at the menacing robots. Acrid air, heavy with smell of burning coal made her cough.

Hare sneered. “Nope. It’s him alright. Stinks of Blue Matter, he does. Brought a pretty little goth-girl with him, too.”

“Jon, jump!” Nikola urged, trying not panic.

“Not yet. I’ll protect you, don’t worry,” he hissed. “Fourteen, fifteen...”

Skull sneered at them as he saw around his brother’s shoulder. “Oh? Last time I checked this piece of trash and his simpering siblings were in a half-dozen garbage bags in the basement somewhere.”

“Worry not, Skull old buddy,” Hare replied and raised his left arm. A buzzsaw unfolded and spun with a sickening whirr. “The good news is we get to take him apart again! How ‘bout the other ones? They comin’ back too, Jonny?”

“Did you see a human one come through here? Twenty five, twenty six...”

“ _Human_ one? Yeah, right!” Skull laughed darkly.

“Well, if they’re not coming back then I guess you better get ready to see ‘em again!” Hare shouted and brought the buzz saw down, gouging into The Jon’s shoulder, aiming to cut him stem to stern. Nikola screamed as sparks and bits of cloth flew and she felt the vibration of the blade chewing through his steel rib cage.

The Jon did not cry out. He spread his feet apart and braced himself, arms still stretched wide to keep the enemies away from his human charge. Four, perhaps five seconds passed and he gnashed his teeth and hissed “...thirty-one, thirty-two _no Spine_!” Then and only then did they make the jump.

 

.x.

Entering the next world, it was pitch dark and for a moment Nikola swooned, but her grip on The Jon’s backpack kept her up. The ice-water feeling told her they had jumped and the evil robots were gone. She shuddered and came to her senses as The Jon crashed to the floor with his legs folded under him.

“Jon!” There was no time for panicking and no running away. This was serious. They were alone, in the dark and The Jon needed her help. It had been three years since she last worked on any of the robots, but having been raised a Walter and trained by Peter Walter V and her father in robotics, engineering, math and even chemistry at a very young age, Nikola Walter was more than capable. Her endorphins surged and putting aside her fear and confusion, she pulled his pack off his back and manically dug through it, looking for a flashlight she knew she’d seen in there at one point. Fortunately, the mag-lite was easily identifiable to the touch and she turned it on, swept the hall with it to be sure nothing was waiting for them and scrambled around to face him. “Oh God, Jon!”

His shoulder was shredded open and oil and hydraulic fluid ran down in pulsing rivulets from the wound on his left side. “Tis’ but a scratch,” he joked quietly.

“Can you hold this?” she asked, pushing the mag-lite toward his right hand. He nodded and shone the light for her as she pulled what was left of his suspenders down and ripped his shirt away. Nikola cursed, pulled the heavy pack toward her and rummaged in it for the tool kit. “I gotta staunch the broken lines quick,” she said. “I hope you had the sense to pack... Ah! Good! Clamps.” With pliers in one hand and tiny clamps in the other she methodically pinched off the broken lines.

“Wasn’t my sense,” The Jon said. “Upgrade unpacked my rubber chicken and put that stuff in.”

“Good damn thing,” Nikola said with an exasperated laugh that was short lived as she reached the end of what she was able to do with the emergency tool kit. “Jon, we gotta get you down to the lab. Can you make it?”

“Gonna have to, right?” he said weakly.

“Kinda.” Nikola picked up the tool box, turned her back to him, eased her shoulder under his right arm and tried to help the heavy robot to stand. “Leave the pack for now. I’ll take the kit in case we need it.”

Slowly, they made their way down the hall toward the stairs. Nikola tried a switch and learned that this manor was not only empty, it was abandoned as no lights sprang to life. The good news was that they both knew they could look for a repair lab on the first level of the basement, so only one flight of stairs stood between them and help. Just around the corner from the stairwell, Nikola crossed her fingers hoping the battery backups were still charged and punched in the code to the first lab door and breathed a sigh as it gaped before her. “There’s gotta be a BM light in here somewhere, I’m going to look for it. Can you get on the table?”  
                The Jon was starting to glitch and badly trying to hide it. His eyes were half open and cast their blue glow on the table then slowly back to her.

“Never mind, just lie on the floor and don’t move.” Nikola scanned the room with the mag-lite and she heard him hiss and clank as he got prone. She found tools, supplies, and most fortunately, a Blue-Matter-powered emergency light in an unlocked cabinet. She powered this on, pointed the light at The Jon’s shoulder and winced. “Jesus Christ, Jon. I’ll do my best but... I mean...” In all her years of being taught robotics, she’d never seen damage like this. His brass chassis was shredded down to the steel frame which was intact, but damaged and some of the softer metal was twisted into the hydraulics of his shoulder and pectoral actuators. The bellows on his left side tried to accordion in and out as he breathed but was punctured and bits of shredded metal were tangled up in the folds. Thankfully, the ever-mysterious and unique area around his power core was untouched. If the robot called Hare had torn another version of The Jon apart, Nikola thought, he must have known that to mess with that would have had a horrific outcome. “Does it hurt?”

“Only when I... Um. Yes, actually.”

“Let me block your left,” she ordered.

“But I...”

“Jon, there’s really no time to argue. It’s either block or insane pain, but it’s also safer for me to work if you can’t flail while I’m pulling chunks of your exo- out of your insides.”

He couldn’t really argue with that. As much as it disturbed him to be even partially powerless, he had only one working arm as it was, making it so that Nikola had to work on him. “Ok,” he agreed and after Nikola flipped a series of switches inside his chest cavity, his left side became motionless. “Zish gooh?” he said through half of his mouth.

“Perfect. Bear with it.” In a flash she dove in and was soldering and clamping, tweezing brass bits out from in between gears, inserting new lines and wires she found in the lab and doing her best to get him functional and pain-free.

“Chea?” The Jon said. “‘M shorry. Din’ mean t’ shcare you.”

“Not scared. Too busy to be scared. Kinda angry though. Why the hell didn’t you jump? You were in danger and you knew it,” she muttered as she fished for another clamp and oil spurted on her cheek.

“Had t’ perteck you an’ had t’ fin’ t’ Spine,” he said simply. The Jon smiled with the right side of his face. “You guysh go firsh, alwaysh.”

Nikola looked up from her task and wiped her eyes with the back of her left hand. “Idiot. No more talking. I gotta concentrate.”

“Ohkheh, Chea.”

“ _Shut it_.”

“Mmm hmm.”

 

Nikola worked for a good twenty minutes in uninterrupted silence. She strained as she carefully bent back a curved length of metal that had laced into the now still left-side bellows pump. “Everything else is looking stable,” she mumbled. “But I don’t know if I have what I need to get your bellows patched up. Once I clear the shrapnel it can at least move freely. I’ll have to look for some duct tape, I guess.”

The Jon chuckled. “Fife haytch tha’ shtuff.”

“Yeah, I know he does. If this was his lab we probably won’t find any. Maybe there’s a replacement bellows though. Or...” she said and wiped her brow. The basement room was not air-conditioned and the air was dusty and stale. “We could get you functional and beg service from a friendly world.”

“Shoun’s gooh.” The Jon gave her the thumbs-up with his right hand.

Nikola smiled at him softly for a brief moment and went back to work. There wasn’t any duct tape, but she found a tough-looking roll of grey gaffer’s tape that fit the bill. Nikola ripped a section of this to the right size and did her best to get it to adhere to the torn section of bellows. With nothing else she could do to help him, she brought The Jon’s left side back online, taped over his chest where the saw had cut into him and asked him to sit up.

The Jon winced as he sat and she could see the pained expression on his face before he hid it in the cool glow of the BM light. “Just like new!” he chimed.

“You’re a crappy liar.”

“And you are _amazing_ under pressure.” He tipped his hat to her. “Let’s get back up to the hall and get a move on.”

                She nodded. “I’ll leave you with the pack and go up and look for a new shirt for you,” Nikola said, flicking her hand at the remnants of the one he wore. “This one is toast.” Secretly, she wanted to take a little more time before the next jump. The fear of another awful encounter made her stomach turn. How many more Walter Manors would be ghost towns? How many were overrun with evil robots? Nikola hoped as they climbed the stairs back to the main hallway that this experience would be the most traumatic, emotionally-draining one that she would have to endure. She would be disappointed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Skull and Hare belong to Surge - divinator.tumblr.com


	8. Chapter 8

**Noon, Saturday, June 20th, 2003**

                They jumped through another seven-hundred some-odd worlds. One after another the answer was ‘no Spine’. As usual, very few worlds held a Walter Manor of any sort and in twelve hours they’d visited only two: one that was entirely black-and-white which both of them agreed was too creepy to bother asking for help and another that seemed to have been abandoned while still under construction. The bones of beams and empty window frames reached to the blue sky above them and a carpet of grass and moss lined the hall. In one world, they encountered a family sitting in the living room of their small ranch-style house. The inhabitants screamed and ran around for the thirty-two seconds it took to check the world. Nikola was very glad no one seemed to own a gun in the house. Most other worlds were either barren fields or surrounded by highway or other buildings depending on what circumstances had governed its development.

                At last, the familiar walls of a proper Walter Manor, the eighth they’d seen out of hundreds of worlds, greeted them and The Jon gave an audible, steamy sigh of relief as he counted up. Nikola tried not to let her elation overcome her reason. She knew The Jon was running out of time but this world could be dangerous despite its benign appearance. She looked around and listened. Voices murmured inscrutably from somewhere down the hall in a normal, conversational tone. The wall sconces gave a soft, warm glow and everything was neat and clean albeit still threadbare and familiarly spooky. On the wall to her right she spotted familiar faces staring back from a color photograph and silently alerted The Jon. Peter A Walter V, his wife Annie and their son “Six” looked out from the photo, which could have been taken only a few years ago, when Six was still a young boy of perhaps ten or twelve years. “That’s a good sign,” she whispered.

The Jon nodded. “Thirty-one, thirty-two. No Spine. Ok, I think maybe we can ask for help here,” he said and leaned on his right shoulder against the wall. “Could you call out for it?”

“Me?” she asked, getting nervous.

The Jon tipped his head to one side. “The likelihood of someone agreeably coming to the aid of a young female voice is higher than a male voice, I think.”

She had to agree with that and so meekly called out for someone, excusing their intrusion. Soon the murmuring voices grew silent and footsteps could be heard. About three doorways down the hall and a hundred feet away an automaton stuck his head out and looked both ways. As soon as he saw them, he leapt out into the hall and marched quickly toward them. Nikola tensed up and looked to The Jon, but the expression on his face was not one of fear. He stared, his mouth hung open, hinging as if to speak with a bemused curl to his lips.

The automaton was not one Nikola had ever seen before. He was taller than the Jon and wore a bandana tightly tied over his head. His copper faceplates had an intricate design and patina showing their age. He stood only inches from The Jon and looked him up and down then opened his mouth and shouted “Spine! Get over here! It’s The Jon!”

The Jon pushed himself off the wall, raised his right arm and waved, trying to explain.

From the same doorway, a silver automaton stepped out and raised a brow. “Rabbit, I really wish you would stop being so...” he began but once he spied the three people standing there, he stopped and gaped. Nikola Walter froze in place and her mouth opened as if to speak but nothing came out.

Rabbit raised his trembling hands. “Is it r-r-really you?”

“No,” The Jon said, sadly. “I’m not your Jon. I’m from another dimension.”

The automaton’s hopeful expression fell. “Of course not,” he said as if talking to himself. “Of course... But you’re still The Jon?”

“Oh, yes. I am.” The Jon smiled, slumped his right shoulder and slid his backpack down onto the floor in a gesture that seemed to say _‘I’m not going anywhere for a while’_. “Hello, Rabbit. Long, time no see.”

The Spine walked slowly toward them, a look of complete astonishment on his smooth face.

Nikola gaped and trembled and looked from one robot to the other. “Rabbit...?” she whispered.

Before The Jon could explain, Rabbit’s lower lip quivered and in a quick motion he spread his arms, wrapped them around The Jon and hugged him tightly. The Jon sucked in a breath and held it, gnashing his teeth. He did not return the hug so Rabbit released him. “Sorry, buddy!” he cried, oil tears coming to his mismatched eyes. “I just got carried away, I...” Rabbit blinked. “Hey, you ok, Jon?”

“Ffffffffffffine.” The Jon hissed through his closed jaw, steam escaping through his teeth and a rapid glitch overtaking his shoulder so badly that his lame left arm flailed at his side. “Couldn’tbebetter.”

Nikola blinked, snapping out of her confused stupor as she saw him begin to deteriorate and she grasped his unaffected right shoulder. “Jon!” she cried, noting the pink stain of hydraulic fluid blooming on the white shirt she’d found for him.

“Jon! You’re hurt!” Rabbit wailed.

“Please,” Nikola said. “We need to get him to Five, is he here?”

The Spine nodded. “Downstairs.” As if he’d done it a million times, The Spine stepped up to him and easily hefted The Jon onto his back and loped quickly toward the elevator. Rabbit followed, fussing over him, biting his fingers with worry.

Nikola Walter stood next to the discarded backpack in the hall and for a moment just watched them go. She shook her head. “Freak out later, girl. It’s not over yet,” she said to herself and jogged after them.

 

.x.

                Following the sound of urgent voices, Nikola made her way down to the first-level basement lab. There, The Jon had been lifted up onto an examination table. The white shirt she’d found for him was discarded on the floor and Peter Walter V with his back to her was carefully peeling back the grey gaff tape to reveal the ghastly wound. He cursed softly and examined the cavity with a penlight. Rabbit wailed again and begged to know what had happened to him. The Spine took his friend by the shoulder and gently pulled him away to give Peter room to work then stared with pinched brows at the teenager across the room. Taking a seat on a stool, Nikola folded her arms and stared back at the automatons.

                “Tea...” The Jon said softly.

                “Oh,” Peter Walter said, straightening as he followed The Spine’s line-of-sight to the other human in the room. “Are you with him?”

                She held very still, only her eyes moved quickly to glance at Peter then back to the robots. “Yeah.”

                “Tea fixed me up, Five,” The Jon said brightly, hiding his pain as best he could. “She did a real good job but I think I need your expertise.”

                Peter looked from the mess inside The Jon’s chest to the girl and back again. “You did this?”

                Nikola made a face and lowered her chin. “Yeah. Sorry.”

                “No, no. I’m rather impressed. Good triage work. And thanks for not using duct tape. Nasty, sticky stuff, that. It looks like...” Peter said, turning back to The Jon’s injuries. “...gonna need a new bellows, and... subclavian oil conduit is shot. Humerus actuator's been dug into pretty good. Can you even move your left arm at all, Jon?”

                “Not really, no.”

                “Hm. Jesus, it looks like someone took a chainsaw to you.”

                “Buzz saw, actually.”

                “Hm,” Peter hummed again, assessing the damage. “Nasty.” Rabbit had resumed his wailing when he heard the word ‘buzz saw’ and Peter looked to The Spine. “You better get Rabbit out of here. It’s only going to get worse.”

                “NO!” Rabbit shouted. “I w-w-won’t go! I know he’s not _our_ Jon, but I...”

                The Spine tried patiently to argue with him--to convince him to leave Peter Walter to work on The Jon in peace, but he wasn’t having it. Nikola Walter’s mouth screwed up into a heavy pout as she watched black oil tears run down this robot called Rabbit’s cheeks. His movements were halting in the same way that her family’s automatons moved and he wept and clutched The Spine’s vest for support. He shifted quickly between horror and sadness and anger in a sickeningly familiar way. His speech was accented and stuttered. Nikola successfully fought back her own tears by giving in to her anger. “Why didn’t you tell me?” she barked loudly and forcefully to the automaton on the table. “Why did everyone lie to me?”

                The Jon bit his lip. “I’m sorry, Tea. It’s not so much like we lied to you, we just never told you the truth,” he laughed nervously.

                Peter, The Spine and Rabbit stopped what they were doing and listened.

                “And just what _is_ the truth, Jon?” the teen asked from her perch on the stool.

                The Jon sighed. “Rabbit is going to kill me, but, oh well, the rat’s in the kitchen,” he said quietly and took a deep breath. “In 1979 something terrible happened...”

                Peter Walter gasped. “To you, too?”

                “To _me_?” The Jon asked, surprised. “No, to Rabbit and The Spine. It’s a long story, but basically it was my fault. They were after me but Rabbit and Spine got hit with a weapon that turned them into humans.”

                The Spine’s gears shifted loudly and he took a staggering step back. Rabbit stopped sniffling and looked on his brother with shock and concern.

                “Why didn’t anyone ever tell me!” Nikola shouted.

                The Jon smiled compassionately. “Your mom said that they never thought about it until you were older, and by then...” his brows curved upward into a sad expression. “You didn’t like us robots at all anymore and you were so unhappy she was afraid to make you even more unhappy so she decided to wait until you were ready to know.”

                Nikola blinked and trembled a little as she took in how rushed The Jon’s words were, almost seeming to be bordering on tears. “Oh crap,” she hissed. “I am such a jerk. I am _such a jerk!_ I don’t hate you! I just don’t know what to feel about _anything!_ I...” she slid off the stool and jogged to the exam table. She took his right hand in hers. “I’m sorry, Jon. You guys have been nothing but awesome to me and I’ve been such a...”

                “Not another word like that, Nikola Walter,” The Jon scolded. “We love you and we know you love us, your mom and dad, and Five and Annie, and Wanda and Norman, and even Six. We know.” He tugged her hand, coaxing her to come closer and she carefully gave him a hug where he lay, half-immobilized on the table. “Why don’t you go take a nice walk with The Spine and Rabbit and let Five work on me. I’m going to have to go offline for it, anyway.”

                Nikola nodded into his shoulder then stood up, wiped her cheek with the back of her hand and looked up at the pair of automatons standing just behind her with astounded looks on their metal faces. “Well?” she asked shrugging. “Shall we?”


	9. Chapter 9

Turning her back on the automatons, Nikola made sure she lead the way, her long legs plodding up the steps two at a time and her heart pounding so hard she was sure they could hear its echo. She could hear them following her a good twenty feet behind. This manor had the same layout as hers, so finding her way to the back door was easy. The sun was shining and a light breeze blew her shoulder-length hair around her. Now that she was outside, she stopped and looked over her shoulder at the two of them. The forlorn looks on their faces surprised her. The Spine looked as if he were in a daze, brows raised and his mouth frowning. Rabbit still had traces of oil tears on his copper cheeks and his posture was slumped and tired.

                “In your world, where you’re from,” The Spine began, extending his left arm and emphasizing his words with jerking motions. He seemed to notice this unconscious movement and paused, frowned, clenched his fist and returned the arm to his side. “It was Rabbit and I who were transformed into Humans on that day back in nineteen seventy nine, not the Jon, as it was in our world?”

Nikola stared at them and nodded her head. “This is so weird. I’m having a really hard time dealing with this. I never knew you were robots, but I guess it makes sense. I always thought Mark and Judy were Dad’s parents since Uncle Pete and him were so close but they look nothing alike. They must have just taken ‘Walter’ as a last name. Ugh, duh, ‘Spine’ and ‘Rabbit’, of course those are robot names! Who names their kids something that weird! Not that I can talk with a name like mine,” she laughed deliriously. “So weird. You look _just_ like Dad,” she said to The Spine then looked to Rabbit and said, “but Mom? I mean, she’s got copper-colored skin, I guess, but...”

                The Spine rocked on the balls of his feet as if her words had pushed him backward and released a large plume of steam. “Wait, what?” he shouted. “You mean that...?” He couldn’t form the words that blazed across his already whirling mind.

                Nikola made a face. “Sorry. Yeah, I’m your daughter.”

                It was clear that Rabbit had not yet made this connection, either as he gawked at the teen. “You’re our what now?”

                “My dad is Spine Walter, my mother is Rabbit Walter, and I’m Nikola Tea Tambourine Walter--don’t ask about the name, it’s _super_ embarrassing.”

                The Spine stepped closer to her. His black lips were taught, brows pinched. He stared into her green eyes and slowly a bemused smile spread across his face. “I have a daughter?” Nikola blushed to see the seven-foot automaton look on her with such wonder and joy.

                “W-w-w-wait a hot second!” Rabbit cried. “You said your mom was copper-colored... I’m your momma?”

                Nikola laughed nervously at his reaction. “Yeah, I’m not sure who this is weirder for, me or you. Oh, here,” she said and clumsily pulled her cell phone from the pocket of the sweatshirt she wore. It took a moment to power back on and she pressed the arrows with shaking hands to navigate to a photo gallery of grainy, low-mega-pixel images. “I have a picture of them, I think.” Both robots crowded in expectantly. “Yeah, here’s dad,” she said and turned the small screen toward The Spine.

                “That’s me?” he said at a whisper then laughed lightly. “That’s me! I’m a Walter assistant?” he asked, noting Spine Walter’s blue hair and pale skin. The man was giving the camera a thumbs-up, making a goofy face and he held a Walter Robotics coffee mug in his other hand. Nikola nodded.

                “Do ya got a picture of me?” Rabbit asked quietly and smiled politely.

                Nikola’s eyes widened for a moment, a bit taken aback at how very much like her mother this robot man sounded and acted and she quickly scrolled through the pictures again. “Yeah, she’s here. It’s not a very good one, sorry.” She held the phone out again to show a blurry image of her mother laughing, her mouth open and head turned to look at something out of the frame. She wore a black tank-top shirt and one hand pushed her long, brown hair out of her face. Rabbit’s jaw dropped.

                “Look at me!” he cried. “That’s not me, no way! I can’t be that cute! And look at all that hair!” Rabbit laughed. “I’m r-r-really a lady?” He lowered his voice again and looked up at Nikola in wonder. “I’m a mother?”

                The Spine jabbed him with his elbow. “And my wife, too.”

                “Not funny, Spine,” Rabbit muttered out of the side of his mouth. “How did that even happen?”

                Nikola turned the phone around and looked at the picture of her mother herself. “I don’t know. I just found out, remember? I guess someone shot you with a weird weapon of some kind. Probably had something to do with Kazooland, I bet.”

                “It did,” The Spine said soberly. “At least, it did here. The Jon was mayor of Biscuit Town in New Pieland.” Nikola nodded, affirming this was so in her world, as well. “Becile Industries wanted to muscle in but he was protecting the place, so they turned him into a human so he couldn’t ever return to New Pieland again. It wasn’t all that bad. He was sad for a while, but there were things about being human that Jon loved and found thrilling. I...” The Spine hung his head and his gears whirred. “I was very jealous. I’ve always wanted to be more human in appearance, action and... well, to see him the way he was... I wasn’t always pleasant to him. For that I’ll be eternally sorry.”

                “Spine...” Rabbit whispered, but the silver robot held his hand up.

                “It’s ok, Rabbit. Nothing to be done about it. I’m just glad you appear to have snapped out of your funk, now. You have, haven’t you?”

                Rabbit nodded. “I’m sorry about that, Spine. I just...” He trembled slightly. “I just d-d-didn’t want to let go.”

                Nikola’s stomach turned. “Does this have something to do with why your Jon’s not here?”

                The Spine nodded. “Rabbit, I think maybe it’s time to go pay him a visit, don’t you?”

                The older automaton took a deep breath and heaved a huge sigh. “I don’t really want to, but I think I have to. Nikki, will you come with me?”

                “Nikki...?” she repeated. “That’s what my mom calls me.”

                Rabbit smiled softly. “Whaddaya know? Guess I am your mom.”

                Nikola smiled back and took Rabbit’s extended hand. She reached out and took The Spine’s hand as well and the three of them walked down to the duck pond behind Walter Manor.

 

.x.

                A large weeping willow dipped its branches into the rippling surface of the pond as if it were playing in the water. On the hill on the opposite side of the pond stood a small, family cemetery surrounded by a wrought-iron fence put up in the nineteen forties after Peter A. Walter I died. The fence was only about two feet high and served not to keep people out, but to define the area. The four sides of the fence were decorated with large, curling Ws and blue crystal spheres meant to emulate Blue Matter cores crowned each corner. In her own world, Nikola often came here to get away from the craziness of Walter Manor and contemplate her life among what she thought were her ancestors. Her heart raced as they approached it now and she realized that not one of the people buried there was actually related to her.

                Rabbit squeezed her hand a bit tighter and looked on her with concern. “Are you alright?” he asked. “Your heart just started beating a lot faster.” Nikola nodded and tried to calm herself. Was it really so strange to think that her spunky, emotional mother had once been the copper automaton holding her hand on the way to the cemetery? she thought. Even this version, who had only just met her, cared for her as if she were family. The kids at school had told her that living with robots was weird, that they were other, different, and not human. Not family. Those kids couldn’t possibly understand, even the musicians and artists she called friends. They might have been more accepting of misfit people, but they didn’t know how fun and interesting it was to use math and science to create wonders like the robots and how amazing they were as people, as family. And how could they, really? Suddenly, Nikola remember the words her Aunt Wanda said as she eavesdropped on her and her mother the other day.

_“...it’s more than just living in a house full of weirdoes and creepy stuff that other people can’t possibly understand. It’s our birthright and almost our duty and it can weigh heavy on us. ... I’ve been through it all and I’m still here. I still love everyone and I know how much they love me and I wouldn’t trade any of it for anything.”_

Nikola smiled up at Rabbit and squeezed his metal hand back.

 

                As they grew closer she noticed that among the familiar individual markers that memorialized the lives of Peter Walter I, II, III, IV, Iris, Mary and Judy Walter and Guy Hottie there was one more. The smaller markers ringed the main Walter Monument made in the shape of a strange of obelisk. Incredibly large and impressive, it would have dwarfed most monuments in any given public or sacred ground. It was carved of black granite and stood thirty feet in height. Between the base containing names, dates and epitaphs and the spire of the obelisk itself was a large blue crystal sphere, held in place by four, shining, bright silver titanium rods that connected the two parts. The setting sun shone through the orb and made it appear to glow.

                The Spine opened the old gate and allowed Rabbit and Nikola to enter, then solemnly closed it behind him. Just as she had thought, Rabbit lead her to the unfamiliar headstone. Her stomach turned as she read the inscription.

                “In Memory of Jon Walter, eighteen ninety-six to two thousand. Beloved son and brother,” she said, her voice catching in her throat.

                “One of his favorite things,” The Spine said softly, “was driving his motorcycle. One night, he was coming home and a truck strayed into his lane.” He could say no more.

                Rabbit released Nikola’s hand and squatted down in front of the stone. “Hiya, buddy,” he said, his voice barely coming out at a whisper. “I’m so s-s-s-sorry I haven’t been to see ya. I’ve been kinda stuck. I made The Spine crazy with it. Every day, around three or so when you were s’pose to be back that day I’d complain that you were late, just like I did that day. Every day for the last three years, I did that. If anyone said anything about _the accident_ I’d tune ‘em out and ask again. I wasn’t being silly, I just really couldn’t get past it ‘cause I’d created a loop where I didn’t advance past that date. I didn’t wanna accept it because I don’t wanna let you go.” He dropped from the squat to his knees and put one hand on the black granite headstone. “I knew when you turned human I’d have to let you go one day, but I didn’t think it’d be so damn soon!” He covered his face with his other hand. “Forgive me, Jon.”

                The Spine took a few reluctant steps toward the headstone and put his hand on Rabbit’s shoulder. “Forgive me, Jon,” he echoed. “Today I got to meet my own _human daughter_. Somewhere out there, I got to live and love and even become a father!” He smiled wistfully as he cast his eyes briefly on Nikola. “Forgive me. I was blinded by jealousy sometimes and I treated you coldly. Then when Rabbit started acting the way he did, I got angry at myself because I couldn’t help him. I never once thought that I’d never be able to apologize.” Nikola covered her mouth with her hand as she watched the automaton versions of her father and mother cry over the grave of the human version of her friend. The steam that occasionally swirled around them quickly dissipated on the breeze.

The three remained there, grieving for several minutes. At last, The Spine pulled his pocket-square from his vest and dabbed the oil from his cheeks. He helped Rabbit to his feet and handed him the red cloth which he unfolded and wiped his entire face with, doing more to smear the oil than to clean it up. Nikola reached up, took it from him and helped finish the job. Rabbit smiled sadly at her and when she had handed the dingy pocket-square back to The Spine, Rabbit gave her a sudden and tight hug with his right arm and The Spine with his left. Neither of them protested.


	10. Chapter 10

As the noonday sun was hot and bright, Nikola, Rabbit and The Spine relocated to the bench overlooking the cemetery under a stand of aspens. Nikola told them all she knew about her father’s disappearance and how the Walter family had handled the situation. They chatted about how different and similar their worlds were. Rabbit chastised the girl for not being romantically interested in Peter Walter VI and that if she were his daughter he would certainly think that they’d be a good match. This resulted in him being chastised by The Spine for being pushy and suggestive. Nikola smiled. “There really isn’t a whole lot different between you and my folks, except, you know, being robots,” she said.

                The Spine grinned back at her then made a puzzled face. “But, your Jon isn’t very much like our Jon was.”

                “No,” Rabbit agreed, crossing his left ankle over his knee and leaning back on the bench. “He’s really g-g-got his stuff together!”

                “Everyone says that,” Nikola said, frowning. “But he’s only been like that since Dad went missing.”

                Rabbit sat up straight and shot a concerned look at his friend. “Ya don’t suppose...?”

                The Spine nodded. “Could be. Stands to reason, but, Rabbit...”

                Nikola’s heart flipped, hearing trepidation in their voices. “What?”

                “Well,” The Spine said, tilting his head as if he didn’t want to elaborate. He pursed his lips before he spoke. “Did you by chance put your ‘bots under Protocol Three?”

                “Protocol Three?” she asked, standing so that she could watch both of their expressions. “They were under Seven when Uncle Pete and them were working. What’s Three do? I’ve never heard of that one.”

                Both of them looked at each other again. Rabbit quickly looked away, his eyes trained on Walter Manor in the distance where The Jon was being repaired. The Spine’s gears whirred. “Protocol Three is a wartime program that was designed to keep us focused on the mission. It inhibits our fight-or-flight response...”

                “ _Fight_ ,” Rabbit spat and extended his right arm dramatically. “Fight _only_.” He raised a finger for each point and recited them in a monotone and deep voice that sent chills through the teen girl. “Protocol one: protect human life. This protocol is locked and permanent. Protocol two: adhere to protocol one and protect the Walter Family. This protocol is also locked and permanent. Protocol three: Adhere to protocols one and two and do not deviate from the mission. Only a Walter representative can disable protocols three and up.” He frowned and seemed to be quite angry just thinking about this directive as steam started to roil from his vents. “Starting with the Great War, we all had this initiated and they meant well, but... it was... when we... by Viet Nam we...” Rabbit started to glitch, his right shoulder ticking upwards repeatedly, the arm folding up as if holding a gun and he squeezed his eyes shut as the flashbacks flared across his brain.

                Nikola gasped and took a step forward but The Spine was already leaping into action, having seen this too many times before. He slid next to Rabbit on the bench, grasped him by the shoulders and pulled him forcibly to his chest, hugging him tightly as he shook and twitched. The silver automaton shushed him and rocked him slowly and rhythmically until the seizure had passed. Rabbit lay exhausted in The Spine’s arms and didn’t move.

                “Does your mother go through this?” The Spine asked, quietly.

                Nikola was dumbstruck and it took her a beat before she found her voice. “No.”

He sighed. “Good.”

She stepped closer to them and gently put her hand on Rabbit’s bandana’d head. “I knew the ‘bots had fought, but, Mom and Dad, too? Jesus...”

Rabbit turned his head and looked up at her. “She’s ok, your mom? No freak outs?” She shook her head and Rabbit shakily got to his feet. “I’m so glad,” he said softly. “And your Jon seems to be ok, too.”

“Well, yeah usually he’s a fruit loop, but,” she said, her voice breaking. “This stupid protocol got him chewed up by those evil robots in that one world! If he’d still had his flight-response he would have listened to me and jumped and he wouldn’t be in pain right now!”

The Spine stood and raised a brow. “He didn’t listen to you?”

“No! He pushed me behind him and told me he’d protect me and that he wanted to make sure he cleared the world and checked for Dad otherwise he couldn’t come back and check again later.”

The robots nodded to each other. The Spine shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “If he thought he could keep you safe and complete his mission, under that protocol he’d take any damage to get that done.”

“But... that’s messed up!”

“It’s also what we’re here to do, protocol or no,” The Spine said.

“Well...” Nikola pouted. “I guess. Jon’s been really good and brave. He even put up with me being a real brat.” She looked up at them and smiled slyly. “I think maybe he deserves a present.”

               

.x.

                By the time they returned to the first basement level lab, The Jon was sitting up on the table, chatting affably with Peter Walter V. His chest was intact and gleamed brightly thanks to the new sections and a fresh polish. Rabbit overtook Nikola as they ran to greet him and he gushed over how well he was doing. He stepped excitedly from his left foot to his right as if doing a little dance and told The Jon that Nikola had a surprise for him. The girl smirked and blushed as she thanked him for being so good to her and working so hard to find her father. The Jon waved his hand and tried to change the subject and suggested they had better get back on the road when she shocked him.

                “I, Nikola Tea Tambourine Walter, hereby dismiss Protocol Three.”

                The Jon’s photoreceptors brightened for a second and his posture loosened as if he’d just been suddenly intoxicated. “Tea...” he said softly. “I’m just going to turn it right back on, young lady!” he said in his more typical, strangely-accented, sing-song way of speaking.

                “No way, friend. You get off this table and go play with your buddies. That’s an order.”

                His eyes seemed to bulge (if that were even possible) and his lip quivered. “But...!”

                “I’ll try to stay close so you can broadcast me,” she said, anticipating the argument. “Fun. Now. _Go_.”

                The little robot lunged at her and hugged her tightly then just as quickly leapt off the exam table and collided with Rabbit and The Spine. In a moment they were gone from the room, the sounds of laughter (and The Spine’s baritone admonitions) fading as they went.

                Nikola breathed a sigh and met Peter Walter V’s gaze. She laughed at the perplexed look on his face.

                “Your version of me put them under Protocol Three?” He asked.

                “Ya know, I don’t think so. I remember when we were all in the parlor talking, Uncle Pete wondered why Jon was so collected. Can the ‘bots do it to themselves?”

                “Oh yes, it was pretty important that they could do so.”

                Nikola nodded. “I’m sure that’s it, then. Jon’s pretty amazing. You’d never think someone as nuts as he is could do what he’s done.”

                Peter laughed and agreed. “You’re pretty amazing, yourself. What you did was highly benevolent. Jon said you’re younger than my son, but I find that hard to believe. You might not be a Walter by blood, by what I’ve seen of the work you did on poor Jon and they way you obviously care for the robots, you’re a Walter in my book, for sure.”

                Nikola blushed heavily. “Thanks, Uncle Pete. That means a lot to me.”

                He smiled. “I’ll clean up here. You better catch up to them. No telling what they’ll get themselves into.”

                She nodded and jogged off to find them.

 

.x.

                Hours passed and Peter Walter V and Nikola ate leftover spaghetti and watched the robots perform their songs. The two humans chatted about this and that and about how in her world, Nikola’s father had figured a way to repair and bring Hatchworth back to life. When Peter exclaimed how amazing that was, The Spine and Rabbit stopped playing and begged to know how it was done. Nikola had to remind The Jon that he could come back with the notes if he had a lock of Peter’s hair as she had heard him tell Deelia Moreau-Walter the other day, and there was much rejoicing. Rabbit clasped The Jon’s hands and they did a “ring-around-the-Spine-y” dance of joy, much to The Spine’s embarrassment. He rolled his eyes and gave Nikola a pleading look but she just laughed.

Suddenly, The Jon’s eyes went wide and he stopped skipping. This tripped Rabbit up, causing him to crash into him. Because their arms were linked in a circle around The Spine, all three of them tumbled to the ground like overgrown children.

                “Jon!” Nikola cried and ran to him, helping the robots get to their feet again. “Are you ok?”

                “Number forty-two!” he cried, scrambling to get out of the pile of metal arms and legs. “Number forty-two!”

                Peter made a face. “Help us out, Jon. What’s that mean?”

                “Me! Number forty-two! He’s found him!”

                Nikola stared at the exuberant automaton “He’s found...? Dad!” She screamed and grasped The Jon’s hands as they both jumped up and down for joy. They noticed that though the other three in the room were happy for them, they were glum with the idea that they were now leaving.

                “I guess you better reinstate Protocol Three, Nikola,” The Spine suggested.

                She smiled on The Jon. “No. I won’t do that to you. If you want it on, you can do it yourself, but we don’t need it anymore. We’re going home.”

                The Jon nodded firmly and his hat swayed loosely on his head as he did so. “Indubitably!”

                “Miss ya, buddy,” Rabbit said, hugging his brother and the teen. “An’ I’m so glad I got to meet ya, Nikki.”

                The Spine simply nodded but accepted hugs from both of them. “Good luck. Say hi to... _us_.”

                They thanked Peter Walter again, who handed them the now mostly-empty backpack and The Jon stretched out his hand with a twitching, excited grin. Nikola took it with her right, waved with her left and in a flutter of blue-and-white confetti they were gone.

 

.x.

**Close to Midnight, Saturday June 20th, 2003**

                They arrived in an open field to the sound of crickets and the distant ever-changing song of a mockingbird somewhere in the trees. It was very dark, but because this world was uninhabited, the stars were bright and gave vague definition to the hills and features of the landscape. In the near distance they saw the blue photoreceptors of The Jon Number Forty-two turn toward them and bob up and down. Nikola looked to her own Jon’s glowing blue eyes, squeezed his hand tightly and they two of them ran as fast as they could toward the spot.

Standing under the willow tree near the pond were two figures: the robot with his obvious eyes and a tall figure wearing all white which became more visible as they grew near. Nikola slowed her pace and The Jon followed suit. She walked the last few feet until she was standing before the shadowy figure. When both of The Jons’ eyes fell on her, he at last knew who it was who had come for him. “Nikola!” Spine Walter cried.

“Daddy!”

As they embraced, The Jons saluted each other and Number Forty-two vanished. Jon Prime waited his turn patiently then he too hugged Spine. “I’ve called off the others,” he said. “Mission accomplished. Let’s go home!”

 

.x.

Spine shuddered as the ice-through-the-veins feeling washed over him. “Ugh, that happen every time?”

Nikola nodded. “Three thousand some-odd times.”

All three paused and looked down the hill at Walter Manor and its many lighted windows before jogging to the back door.

 

Once inside, Nikola saw that her father’s ghostly pallor was sun burnt, his blue hair mussed and his white lab clothes were dirty and wrinkled. He put his hand on his daughter’s head and hugged her to his chest again.

“We’re home, dad,” she said and squeezed him.

“We’re home!” The Jon shouted at the top of his lungs and broadcast the same message over the wifi and in moments the house was alive with the pounding of footsteps.

Spine was engulfed in a sea of hugs and applause and cheers from his family and he quickly realized someone was missing. “Where’s Rabbit?”

Upgrade made a pensive face. “I think she went to go read a few hours ago.”

“ _Read_...?” Spine asked and a knowing smile spread across his face. He gently pushed his way through the hall.

 

She was just where he expected to find her, lying on her back on her favorite couch in the violet parlor at the opposite end of the manor. The pages of an old, worn, copy of X-Men issue 30 with Jean Grey and Cyclopse’ wedding on the cover lay on her chest. She wore jeans and an old worn, grey t-shirt of his. Her left arm rested over her eyes and her mouth hung open slightly as she dozed. A tall art-deco reading lamp cast interesting shadows across the large room.

Hatchworth, Upgrade, The Jon and Nikola poked their heads in the wide archway and watched. Upgrade let out a small squeal of delight and Hatchworth shushed her. Spine Walter walked carefully and quietly into the room and bent to kiss her.

Rabbit woke drowsily and hummed happily. “Spine...” she muttered, not yet grasping that she wasn’t dreaming. “Spine!” she shouted, sat up and almost knocked him over as she tackled him. She screamed and wailed his name, clutching him tightly to her. He said nothing, but practically smothered her with kisses.

Hatchworth made to cover Upgrade’s photoreceptors and she swatted him. The Jon sighed happily and Nikola cried tears of unbridled happiness to see her mother so relieved. As if in response to this, Rabbit caught sight of them and shouted their names and they all piled into the room. Those who’d been left at home fussed over the travelers who all showed signs of wear and tear but wore wide, tired grins, glad to be home safe, at last.

Nikola sat down heavily on the couch next to her mother and looked over at her sheepishly. “Mom, I’m sorry I was such a...”

Rabbit sighed and shook her head. “You’re here. You’re alive. You’re my daughter. And you just went to the edge of the world to find your father and I couldn’t be more pleased or proud of you if you were elected president of the universe.” Nikola laughed and they hugged. The robots and Walterman watched them, relieved to see that they had reconciled. “And you found something even more important than just your dad,” Rabbit whispered so that only Nikola could hear.

“What’s that, mom?”

“Your smile,” she said, happy tears coming again. “Welcome home, Nikki.”

 

END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was inspired to write a story about Rabbit and Spine having a daughter being a frustrated teen with a good life who just didn’t know how to feel about it by Mrs. M whose daughter had gone to live with her aunt because they fought so much. She had a good, supportive family, siblings, parents who were married, a nice house and was being sent to college and everything, but she just seemed to want more than her family could give her in many ways and didn’t know how to deal with those feelings without being horrible to her mother. As I am writing this, having finished the story, Mrs. M’s daughter has moved back home and things seem to be getting better. I wish her all the best luck for the future!
> 
> My next fic is a spin-off from this one of sorts that takes place in the world of Moreau-Walter Amalgamated...


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